Geology Rocks!: Geological Features

Can you tell a crevasse from a hole in the ground? If not, you might want to learn these words for the many forms that land can take. This list is a real butte!
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. arroyo
    a stream or brook
    One arroyo often looks identical to another, and it is easy to become lost. The Guardian (Jun 28, 2019)
    An arroyo is a stream, and also the steep- sided gully carved by a stream. It's a Spanish word, which is why it's frequently used in the American Southwest.
  2. butte
    a hill that rises abruptly from the surrounding region
    Weeks later her boyfriend Bobby fell ill and she tended to him at their home in Kayenta, a small town near the sandstone buttes of Arizona's Monument Valley. BBC (Jun 15, 2020)
    Butte is a French word for a free-standing hill surrounded by flatter land.
  3. canyon
    a ravine formed by a river in an area with little rainfall
    Then the owls flew over the canyon walls and disappeared. Los Angeles Times (Jul 1, 2020)
  4. cavern
    a large cave or a large chamber in a cave
    Salt caverns in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries were either full or fully booked. Reuters (Apr 22, 2020)
  5. chasm
    a deep opening in the earth's surface
    The glacier rests atop an enormous chasm more than 2 miles deep. Scientific American (Mar 25, 2020)
    Chasma is Greek for "a deep pit." Chasm can also be used metaphorically, to describe a huge gap between two parties trying to reach an agreement or understanding.
  6. crevasse
    a deep fissure
    So I put all my trust in my guide and we picked our way down almost vertical crevasses hemmed in by sheer cliff walls. BBC (Apr 29, 2020)
    Crevasse is a French word for a deep crack, either in a glacier or in the earth itself. The root is the same as our crevice, which describes a small crack or opening in a rock face.
  7. escarpment
    a long steep slope at the edge of a plateau or ridge
    The well-defined escarpments rimming the lake reveal its true nature: It is a giant crater formed by massive eruptions. Washington Post (Jan 15, 2020)
  8. fault
    a crack in the earth's crust resulting from displacement
    Nearby, scores of families sprinted, and dawdled along Cañada Road, which parallels Interstate 280 in the valley carved by the San Andreas fault. Los Angeles Times (Jun 25, 2020)
  9. fissure
    a long narrow depression in a surface
    Almost 10% of the groups resembled ones that live on hydrothermal vents—fissures deep in the ocean where microbes thrive despite extreme heat and mineral concentrations. Science Magazine (Jun 30, 2020)
    Fissura is Latin, from the past participle of findere, meaning "to cleave." A fissure is a crack, either in a rock or in the Earth itself as is sometimes seen after an earthquake.
  10. formation
    (geology) a distinct unit of rocks or layers
    Then the fact that this unusual geologic formation was once considered to be the eighth wonder of the world but was obliterated in a volcanic explosion that removed every trace of it in 1886. Washington Post (Jun 25, 2020)
  11. glacier
    a slowly moving mass of ice
    Medium- and high-resolution cameras will collect images of features such as dunes, glaciers and volcanoes, providing clues to how they formed. Nature (Jul 6, 2020)
    Glace is "ice" in French.
  12. gully
    a deep ditch cut by running water
    That fairway on 18 slopes right to left, but there’s a gully down the right, I noticed, where if you hit it a bit too far down the right, it kicks to the right. Golf Digest (Mar 24, 2020)
    A gully is pretty similar to an arroyo.
  13. mesa
    flat tableland with steep edges
    The territory, which is roughly the size of West Virginia, includes arid deserts and alpine forests with high plateaus, mesas and mountains reaching over 10,000ft in altitude. The Guardian (Apr 2, 2020)
    Mesa means "table" in Spanish. Those flat-topped, sheer-sided mountains you see in the Southwest? Those are mesas.
  14. morphology
    the science that studies the formation of rocks and land forms
    Writing in Nature, Nienhuis et al.1 report a model that correlates the forces that shape deltas with delta morphology, and use it to analyse the shapes of some 11,000 coastal deltas. Nature (Jan 21, 2020)
  15. promontory
    a natural elevation
    Set on a promontory lot on half an acre, the hillside stunner spans 16,000 square feet with six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. Los Angeles Times (Jun 19, 2020)
  16. ridge
    a long narrow natural elevation or striation
    Crews focused efforts Friday on the southeast ridge of the mountain ridge in a continuing effort to keep the flames from moving into the Smith Valley further east. Washington Times (Jul 10, 2020)
  17. rift
    a narrow fissure in rock
    In the Turkana Basin and in the larger rift valley to which it belongs, their efforts are greatly aided by a long history of volcanism. Scientific American (Jun 27, 2020)
    A Scandinavian word, rift is roughly synonymous with fissure.
  18. swale
    a low-lying area, especially a marshy area between ridges
    Utilizing a $17,000 Nebraska Greener Communities grant and matching funds, a shallow swale was constructed last fall to help drain the orchard. Washington Times (Jun 14, 2020)
    A swale is a wide, shallow ditch, often a human-made, for diverting flood water or containing a marshy area. A long, low mound made from the excavated earth — basically the opposite of a swale — is known as a berm.
  19. tectonic
    pertaining to the structure or movement of the earth's crust
    Situated at the intersection of three tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. Reuters (Jun 23, 2020)
Created on Sun Jun 14 23:29:36 EDT 2020 (updated Mon Jul 13 10:24:09 EDT 2020)

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