From the article: You Can Look It Up
Maybe you've read "tectonic shift" one time too many. Maybe it's something more dangerously misunderstood, like "evolution." Or maybe it's an obsolete word that won't die, like "peneplain." What sets you off? Name Us Your Favorites
River development
- For my students, the use of the terms "old", "mature", and "young" when referring to stages of river development is confusing. The stages of development are based on common features rather than actual age. An old river may be chronologically (or geologically) young. It would have been much simpler to label them A, B, and C, or 1, 2, and 3.
- —Guest Labradorite
Cactolith: CB Hunt's little joke
- When I was on a USGS mapping project in the Henry Mountains of Utah (1980-81) we often visited the Black Tiger laccolith, which was where GK Gilbert coined the term and defined it in the late 1800's. CB Hunt had re-mapped the area in the 50's, and apparently annoyed by the somewhat florid and cumbersome language of igneous intrusions, entered this spoof definition into the classic USGS PP Geology of the Henry Mountains, Utah 1953), which found it's way into "Glossary of Geology", AGI, 1974 ed (it does not appear in later editions). "Cactolith" A quasi-horizontal chronolith composed of anastomosing ductoliths whose distal ends curl like a harpolith, thin like a sphenolith, or bulge discordantly like an atmolith or ethmolith." Lovely. On a separate but related note: I have yet to see in any textbook, some of which I have edited, the correct usage of the term "laccolith". Just read CB Hunt's paper, or better, GK Gilbert's, and compare to any modern textbook to see what I mean.
- —Guest cpatter
Missing the concept
- I object more to misuse of terms than to unneeded ones. How about the use of "anticline" for any convex-upward fold, or "dike" for any tabular intrusion with a steep dip? Such usages miss the concept completely.
- —everbeek
Mega-volcano
- Lately I have seen and heard the term Mega-volcano used on shows such as Discovery when in fact they are referring to a caldera. Guess they need to make the disaster scenario sound more ominous.
- —Gregg
I hate "Precambrian"
- I find Precambrian to be particularly worthless. It’s like saying pre-Tuesday. Are we talking about Monday, Sunday, or 400 thousand years ago? The Precambrian is the majority of the Earth’s history and the only supereon in the terrestrial geological timescale. 4 billions years’ worth of geological processes. So much interesting stuff happened in that 4 billion years, that having a term apart from "the Earth’s history" seems pointless and belittling to the magnificence of the periods, eras and eons that occurred before the Cambrian. I say we dump the term Precambrian and have people come to terms with the Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic and Phanerozoic. -- Chris
- —geology1
