Abyssal Zone Dark ocean region ranging from 6,500 feet to 19,500 feet deep with temperatures less than 39° F. About three-fourths of the deep-ocean floor lies in this zone, which is too far from the surface for photosynthesis to take place. Once believed to be devoid of life, the abyssal zone is actually home to an assortment of highly adapted and specialized fish and crustaceans, some of which are blind but others have evolved their own light sources. Daffynition: Don’t need to define it since you’ve been seen in bars just like it trying to hook up with some bottom dweller.
Acadian Orogeny Convergent mountain-building event that occurred around 425 million years ago (Devonian) in which continental slivers accreted to the eastern edge of what is properly termed the Proto-North American continent (Laurentia). The Orogeny occurred when the Avalonian island arc, moving northwest, and Baltica (Proto Western Europe), moving west, crashing against the southward-Laurentia, creating the northern Appalachian mountains. The event is also known as the Appalachian or Avalonian Orogeny. Author’s Note: With the suturing of Laurentia and Baltica, the Acadian Orogeny marked the beginning of the closure of the southern Iapetus Ocean
Accordant Summits Ranges of hills or mountain peaks that have the same or nearly the same elevation; part of William Morris Davis’s no longer accepted erosion cycle concept in which a raised peneplain is eventually eroded into a series of peaks with about the same elevation. Daffynition: Well, maybe I should just let this one pass in a rare exercise in good judgment.
Accreted Terrane Block of land that collided with a continent at a convergent margin and stayed attached to the continent; terrane that did not form at its present location on a continent. Real World Examples: the Canadian Cordillera, Franciscan Mélange in southern California , the Klamath Mountains in Oregon , and the Endicott Mountain in Alaska ’s Brooks Range in Gates of the Arctic National Park Florida Florida Sunshine State
Accretionary Heating Thermal energy resulting from bolide impacts upon a planetary surface. Daffynition: What you feel for that delicious young thing that keeps on growing on you.
Acid Precipitation See acid rain. Daffynition: “Yo, dude, it’s fucking raining LSD.”
Acre-foot Volume of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot. One acre-foot is equal to 43,560 cubic feet, or 325,851 gallons, or 1,233 cubic meters, or a shit-load of water any way you measure it. Real World Example: When farmers irrigate their fields they typically use between two and four acre-feet per year per growing season, depending on their geographic location, climate, and crop needs. So, if you are a flower grower in Maricopa County (in the thirsty Sonoran Desert) west of Phoenix with 700 acres of roses that you continuously crop, since the growing season lasts all year, it’s easy to figure out how much of that liquid gold you’ll need to bring the crops to harvest, assuming three to four crops per year. Daffynition: The size your foot feels after someone has just shoved it up your ass.
Advancing Glacier Large ice mass that accumulates snow/ice at a rate that results in the lower edges being pushed outward and downward. Daffynition: Total dork moving in your direction at a hot singles bar, chilling everything around as it creeps along.
Aeolian Landform Landforms produced by the deposition or erosion of weathered surface materials by wind including, among others, the following landforms: erg, sand dunes in general, deflation hollows, reg, and desert pavement. Daffynition: inert mass that lays around waiting to get blown (Yes, Sister, I know the proper verb tense).
Agate Very fine grained (cryptocrystalline), translucent type of variegated chalcedony quartz that forms in concentric layers or bands in a wide variety of colors and textures; translucent microcrystalline variety of quartz usually found as striped or banded filings in cavities of volcanic and other rocks; often found as a round nodule, with concentric bands like the rings of a tree trunk. Author’s Note: The type known as moss agate features very delicate, dendritic-like patterns that resemble moss. Agates are frequently associated with opal. Many agates are cut and polished as semi-precious stones or as art objects. The word is derived from Middle English and Old French by way of the Romans, who borrowed it from the Greek, akhates. Daffynition: The nickname of some lame-ass Texas
Agglomerate Pyroclastic rock comprised of a chaotic assemblage of coarse angular volcanic fragments cemented by a matrix of volcanic ash. Daffynition: Assemblage of coarse jerks who always seem cemented to the hottest babe in the bar.
Agglutinate 1) Pyroclastic deposit consisting of an accumulation of originally plastic ejecta that were welded together by molten glassy materials. 2) Fragmented foraminifer tests cemented together. Daffynition: Depositional process largely affecting female college freshmen. Used as the verb, to agglutinate.
Air Blast Physical effects, including sudden, high winds and enormous overpressure, produced on the Earth’s surface by a relatively large meteorite that had been burned up in the atmosphere; this type of blast can be more powerful than a Category 5 hurricane, as powerful as a moderate sized nuclear explosion, and is capable of destroying natural and built landscapes. Real World Example: On June 30, 1908, an air blast from a meteorite struck near the Stony Tunguska River in Siberia, about 55 miles north of Vanavara, devastating 800 square miles, felling nearly all the natural vegetation, including thousands of acres of evergreen forests. The force of the explosion has been estimated at 40 megatons of TNT, or 2,000 times the force of the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima
Air Pollution Toxification of the atmosphere through the addition by means of human agency of one or more noxious substances in concentrations high enough to be hazardous to humans, other animals, vegetation, or natural materials. Author’s Note: The term pollution includes particulate emissions, industrial aerosols, nitrous oxide emissions, smog, formation of ozone layers, etc. Daffynition: Alert issued after the fat guy sitting in front of you rips an ugly one.
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<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--> Source: P.A. Mueller, A.L. Heatherington, R.. Shuster, J.L. Wooden, A.P. Nutman, and I. Williams. “Precambrian zircons from the Florida
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