Glossary
Amphibian
Any vertebrate of the class Amphibia: cold-blooded tetrapods that breathe by means of gills in the early stages of life and by means of lungs in the later stages.
Arthropod
Any one of a group of solitary marine, freshwater, and aerial invertebrates belonging to the phylum Arthropoda, characterized chiefly by jointed appendages and segmented bodies. Among the typical arthropods are trilobites, crustaceans, chelicerates, and myriapods. Range, Lower Cambrian to present.
Anticline
A fold of rock, generally convex upward, whose core contains the stratigraphically older rocks.
Assemblages
A collection of bones.
Avalon Zone
Area of Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton, north of the Cobequid - Chedabucto Fault System.
Batholith
A large, generally discordant plutonic mass that has more than 40sq. mi. (100km²) of surface exposure and no known floor. Its formation is believed by most investigators to involve magmatic processes.
Bedrock
A general term for the rock, usually solid, that underlies soil or other unconsolidated, superficial material. A British synonym of the adjectival form is solid, as in solid geology.
Chemotaxonomy
The theory and practice of classifying plants and animals by their chemical nature.
Complex
(a) A large-scale field association or assemblage of different rocks of any age or origin, having structural relations so intricately involved or otherwise complicated that the rocks cannot be readily differentiated in mapping. (b) A rock-stratigraphic unit that includes a mass of rock "composed of diverse types of any class or classes or... characterized by highly complicated structure"
Cross section
A diagram or drawing that shows features transected by a given plane; specifically, a vertical section drawn at right angles to the longer axis of a geologic feature.
Crustal Plate
A thin plate of the outer part of the earth. The depth is much less than the other two dimensions.
Curator
One in charge of a place of exhibit, such as a zoo or museum.
Delta
The low, nearly flat, alluvial tract of land at or near the mouth of a river, commonly forming a triangular or fan-shaped plain of considerable area, crossed by many distributaries of the main river, perhaps extending beyond the general trend of the coast, and resulting from the accumulation of sediment supplied by the river in such quantities that it is not removed by tides, waves, and currents. Most deltas are partly subaerial and partly below water.
Dinosaur
Any reptile of the subclass Archosauria distinguished from other reptiles especially by features of the pelvic bones. Dinosaurs were carnivorous or herbivorous, bipedal or quadrupedal, land-dwelling, and of moderate to very large size. Range, Triassic to Cretaceous.
Epoch [geochronologic]
(a) A geologic-time unit longer than an age and shorter than a period, during which the rocks of the corresponding series were formed. (b) A term used informally to designate a length (usually short) of geologic time.
Esker
A long, narrow, sinuous, steep-sided ridge composed of irregularly stratified sand and gravel that was deposited by a subglacial or englacial stream flowing between ice walls or in an ice tunnel of a stagnant or retreating glacier, and was left behind when the ice melted. It may be branching and is often discontinuous, and its course isusually at a high angle to the edge of the glacier. Eskers range in length from less than 100m to more than 500km (if gaps are included), and in height from 3 to more than 200m.
Estuary
(a) The seaward end or the widened funnel-shaped tidal mouth of a river valley where fresh water comes into contact with seawater and where tidal effects are evident; e.g. a tidal river, or a partially enclosed coastal body of water where the tide meets the current of a stream.(b) A portion of an ocean, as a firth or an arm of the sea, affected by fresh water; e.g. the Baltic Sea. (c) A drowned river mouth formed by the subsidence of land near the coast or by the drowning of the lower portion of a nonglaciated valley due to the rise of sea level.
Exoskeleton
An external skeleton of an animal, serving as a protective and supportive covering for its softer parts; e.g. the outer shell of a brachiopod or pelecypod, the system of sclerites covering the body of an arthropod, or the bony plates covering an armadillo.
Extinction
The total disappearance of a species or higher taxon, so that it no longer exists anywhere.
Fault [structural geologic]
A fracture or a zone of fractures along which there has been displacement of the sides relative to one another parallel to the fracture.
Fault Line
The trace of a fault plane on the ground surface or on a reference plane.
Fauna
The entire animal population, living or fossil, or a given area, environment, formation, or time span.
Felsic
A mnemonic adjective derived from feldspar + lenad (feldspathoid) + silica + c, and applied to those minerals (quartz, feldspars, feldspathoids, muscovite) as a group. It is the complement of mafic.
Flood Plain
(a) The surface of strip of relatively smooth land adjacent to a river channel, constructed by the present river in its existing regimen and covered with water when the river overflows its banks. It is built of alluvium carried by the river during floods and deposited in the sluggish water beyond the influence of the swiftest current. A river has one flood plain and may have one or more terraces representing abandoned flood plains. (b) Any flat or nearly flat lowland that borders a stream and that may be covered by its waters at flood stages; the land described by the perimeter of the maximum probably flood. (c) The part of a lake-basic plain between the shoreline and the shore cliff, subject to submergence during a high stage of the lake.
Flora
The entire plant population of a given area, environment, formation, or time span.
Fossil
Any remains, trace, or imprint of a plant or animal that has been preserved in the Earth's crust since some past geological or prehistoric time; loosely, any evidence of past life.
Geology
The study of the planet Earth -- the materials of which it is made, the processes that act on these materials, the products formed, and the history of the planet and its life forms since its origin. Geology considers the physical forces that act on the Earth, the chemistry of its constituent materials, and the biology of its past inhabitants as revealed by fossils.
Glaciation
(a) The formation, movement, and recession of glaciers or ice sheets. (b) A collective term for the geologic processes of glacial activity, including erosion and deposition, and the resulting effects of such action on the earth's surface. <c> A glacial epoch, or a glacial stage, a part of geologic time during which glaciers were more extensive than at present.
Glacier
A large mass of ice formed, at least in part, on land by the compaction and recrystallisation of snow, moving slowly downslope or outward in all directions, due to the stress of its own weight, and surviving from year to year.
Group [rock]
The formal lithostratigraphic unit next in rank above formation. A group includes two or more contiguous or associated formations with significant lithogic features in common. The type or reference sections of a group re those of its component formations.
GSC
Abbreviation for Geological Survey of Canada.
Holotype
The one specimen or other element designated by the author as the nomenclatural type in describing a new species. As long as the holotype is extant, it automatically fixes the application of the name concerned.
Ichnofauna
The fauna that make trackways.
Ichnology
The study of trace fossils, especially the study of fossil tracks.
Igneous
Said of a rock or mineral that solidified from molten or partly molten material, i.e. from magma; also, applied to processes leading to, related to, or resulting from the formation of such rocks. Igneous rocks constitute one of the tree main classes into which rocks are divided, the others being metamorphic and sedimentary.
Interglacial
Pertaining to or formed during the time interval between two successive glacial epochs or between two glacial stages. Ther term implies both the melting of ice sheets to about their present level, and the maintenance of a warm climate for a sufficient length of time to permit certain vegatational changes to occur.
Intermontane
Situated between or surrounded by mountains, mountain ranges, or mountainous regions; e.g. the Great Basic of the western United States, between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Mountains.
Interstade
A warmer substage of a glacial stage, marked by a temporary retreat of the ice; "a climatic episode within a glaciation during which a secondary recession or a stillstand of glaciers took place"
Intrusion [igneous]
The process of emplacement of magma in pre-existing rock; magmatic activity; also, the igneous rock mass so formed within the surrounding rock.
Invertebrate
An animal belonging to the Invertebrata, i.e. without a backbone, such as the mollusks, arthropods, and coelenterates.
Kame
A low mound, knob, hummock, or a short irregular ridge, composed of a stratified sand and gravel deposited by a subglacial stream as a fan or delta at the margin of a melting glacier; by a superglacial stream in a low place or hole on the surface of the glacier; or as a ponded deposit on the surface or at the margin of stagnant ice.
Lithology
(a) The description of rocks, esp. in hand specimen and in outcrop, on the basis of such characteristics as color, mineralogic composition, and grain size. (b) The physical character of a rock.
Load Cast
A sole mark, usually measuring less than a meter in any direction, consisting of a swelling in the shape of a slight bulge, a deep or shallow rounded sack, a knobby excrescence, a highly irregular protuberance, or a bulbous mammillary or papilliform protrusion of sand or other coarse clastics, extending downward into finer-grained, softer, and originally hydroplastic underlying material, such as wet clay, mud, or peat, that contained an initial depression. It is produced by the exaggeration of the depression as a result of unequal settling and compaction of the overlying material and by the partial sinking of such material into the depression, as during the onset of deposition of a turbidite on unconsolidated mud. A load cast is more irregular than a flute cast (it is usually not systematically elongated in the current direction), and is characterized by an absence of a distinction between the upcurrent and the downcurrent ends.
Mafic
Said of an igneous rock composed chiefly of one or more ferromagnesian, dark-colored minerals in its mode; also, said of those minerals. It is the complement of felsic.
Magma
Naturally occurring mobile rock material, generated within the Earth and capable of intrusion and extrusion, from which igneous rocks are thought to have been derived through solidification and related processes. It may or may not contain suspended solids (such as crystals and rock fragments) and/or gas phases.
Meguma Zone
Area of Nova Scotia south of the Cobequid - Chedabucto Fault System.
Metamorphism
The mineralogical, chemical, and structural adjustment of solid rocks to physical and chemical conditions which have generally been imposed at depths below the surface zones of weathering and cementation, and which differ from the conditions under which the rocks in question originated. In an older and now more obsolete sense, the scope of the term included katamorphism, i.e. the processes of cementation and weathering.
Metasediment
A sediment or sedimentary rock that shows evidence of having been subjected to metamorphism.
Microsaur
An order of lepspondylous amphibians characterized by small size (thus the "micro") and a salamander or snake-like body form. Earlier literature includes early and primitive reptiles in this group which is erroneous.
Moraine
A mound, ridge, or other distint accumulation of unsorted, unstratified glacial drift, deposited chiefly by direct action of glacier ice. The geomorphic name for a landform composed mainly of till that has been deposited by either a living or extinct glacier.
mya
A term used in geology to denote age: millions of years ago.
Orogeny
The process of formation of mountains, including thrusting, folding, and faulting in the outer and higher layers, and plastic folding, metamorphism and plutonism in the inner and deeper layer.
Outbuilding
The accumulation of sediments horizontally (on a plane), such as a delta.
Outwash Plain
A broad, gently sloping sheet of outwash deposited by meltwater streams flowing in front of or beyond a glacier, and formed by coalescing outwash fans; the surface of a broad body of outwash.
Palaeobiology
A branch of palaeontology dealing with the study of fossils as organisms rather than as features of historical geology.
Palaeobotany
The study of plant life of the geological history.
Palaeoenvironment
An environment in the geological past.
Palaeonology
The study of organic walled microfossils; e.g. pollens, spores, algae.
Palaeontology
The study of life in past geological time, based on fossil plants and animals and including phylogeny, their relationships to existing plants, animals, and environments, and the chronology of the Earth's history.
Plan
A drawing, sketch, or diagram of any object or structure, especially, a very large-scale and considerably detailed map of a small area.
Plate tectonics
A theory of global tectonics in which the lithosphere is divided into a number of plates whose pattern of horizontal movement is that of torsionally rigid bodies that interact with one another at their boundaries, causing seismic and tectonic activity along these boundaries.
Precipite
To separate from solution in solid form. Minerals may precipitate because of cooling, evaporation, or loss of acidity
Proto-
Prefix meaning early.
Pyroclastic
Pertaining to the clastic rock material formed by volcanic explosion or aerial expulsion from a volcanic vent; also, pertaining to rock texture of explosive origin. It is not synonymous with the adjective "volcanic".
Rebound
Also called upwarping, this is the uplift of a regional area of the Earth's crust, usually as a result of the release of isostatic pressure, e.g. melting of an ice sheet.
Reptile
Any vertebrate of the class Reptilia; cold-blooded tetrapods that are air-breathing at all stages of development. Range, Pennsylvanian to present.
Rock Hammer
A hammer specially designed for geological work. One end is used for breaking or chipping rocks and the other (either a pick or chisel) for prying or splitting rocks apart.
Sediment
(a) Solid fragmental material that originates from weathering of rocks and is transported or deposited by air, water, or ice, or that accumulates by other natural agents, such as chemical precipitation from solution or secretion by organisms, and that forms in layers on the Earth's surface at ordinary temperatures in a loose, unconsolidated form, e.g. sand, gravel, silt, mud, till, loess, alluvium. (b) Strictly, solid material that has settled down from a state of suspension in a liquid.
Sedimentary
(a) Pertaining to or containing sediment. (b) Formed by the deposition of sediment, or pertaining to the process of sedimentation. (c) A sedimentary rock.
Site
Location; used here to define an area where fossils may be found.
Solution
(a) A liquid containing dissolved substances. (b) The process by which a solid, liquid, or gaseous substance is mixed with a liquid.
Striation
One of multiple scratches or minute lines, generally parallel, inscribed on a rock surface by a geologic agent, i.e. glaciers, streams, or faulting.
Stratigraphy
(a) The science of rock strata. It is concerned not only with the original succession and age relations of rock strata but also with their form, distribution, lithologic composition, fossil content, geophysical and geochemical properties -- indeed, with all characters and attributes of rocks as strata; and their interpretation in terms of environment or mode of origin, and geologic history. All classes of rocks, consolidated or unconsolidated, fall within the general scope of stratigraphy. Some nonstratiform rock bodies are considered because of their association with or close relation to rock strata. (b) The arrangement of strata, esp. as to geographic position and chronologic order of sequence. (c) The sum of the characteristics studied in stratigraphy; the part of the geology of an area or district pertaining to the character of its stratified rocks. (d) A term sometimes used to signify the study of historical geology.
Succession, stratigraphic
(a) A number of rock units or a mass of strata that succeed one another in chronologic order; e.g. an inclusive stratigraphic sequence involving any number of stages, series, systems or parts thereof, as shown graphically in a geologic column or seen in an exposed section. (b) The chronologic order of rock units.
Supergroup [rock]
An assemblage of related groups, or of formations and groups, having significant lithologic features in common.
Syncline
A fold of rock, of which the core contains the stratigraphically younger rocks, generally concave upward.
Tail-drag
The mark made by the dragging of a tail, often seen as a fossil between footprints.
Taxonomy
The theory and practice of classifying plants and animals.
Tectonics
A branch of geology dealing with the broad architecture of the outer part of the Earth, that is, the regional assembling of structural or deformational features, a study of their mutual relations, origin, and historical evolution.
Tetrapod
A four footed animal.
Tide Table
A table displaying the estimated times for high and low tides.
Till
Dominantly unsorted and unstratified drift, generally unconsolidated, deposited directly by and underneath a glacier without subsequent reworking by meltwater, and consisting of a heterogeneous mixture of clay, silt, sand, gravel, and boulders ranging widely in size and shape.
Trace Fossil
A sedimentary structure consisting of a fossilized track, trail, burrow, tube, boring, or tunnel resulting from the life activities (other than growth) of an animal, such as a mark made by an invertebrate moving, creeping, feeding, hiding, browsing, running, or resting on or in soft sediment. It is often preserved as a raised or depressed form in sedimentary rock.
Trackway
A continuous series of tracks left by a single organism.
Tuffs
A general term for all consolidated pyroclastic rocks.
Turbidity Current
A density current in water, air, or other fluid, caused by different amounts of matter in suspension, such as a dry-snow avalanche or a descending cloud of valcanic dust; specif. a bottom-flowing current laden with suspended sediment, moving swiftly (under the influence of gravity) down a subaqueous slope and spreading horizontally on the floor of the body of water, having been set and/or maintained in motion by locally churned- or stirred-up sediment that gives the water a density greater than that of the surrounding or overlying clear water. Such currents are known to occur in lakes, and are believed to have produced the submarine canyons notching the continental slope. They appear to originate in various ways, such as by storm waves, tsunamis, earthquake-induced sliding, tectonic movement, over-supply of sediment, and heavily charged rivers in spate with dessities exceeding that of sea water.
Turbidity Flow
A tongue-like flow of dense, muddy water moving down a slope.
Unconformable
Said of strata or stratification exhibiting the relation of unconformity to the older underlying rocks; not succeeding the underlying rocks in immediate order or age or not fitting together with them as parts of a continuous whole. In the strict sense, the term is applied to younger strata that do not "conform" in position or that do not have the same dip and strike as those of the immediate underlying rocks.
Uniform
Having the same form as others.
Upbuilding
The building-up of a sedimentary deposit, as by a stream or in the ocean.
Uplift [tectonic]
A structurally high area in the crust, produced by positive movements that raise or upthrust the rocks, as in a dome or arch.
Vertebrate
Any animal belonging to Vertebrata, characterized by internal skeleton of cartilage or bone, and specialized organization of the anterior end of the animal.
