Geological Survey Bulletin 611 Guidebook of the Western United States: Part A

Alluvial fan. The outspread sloping deposit of bowlders gravel, and sand left by a stream where it passes from a gorge out upon a plain.

Andesite. A lava of widespread occurrence, usually of dark-gray color and intermediate in chemical composition between rhyolite and basalt.

Anticline. Arch of bedded or layered rock suggestive in form of an overturned canoe. (See fig. 20, p. 102.) (See also Dome and Syncline.)

Badlands. A region nearly devoid of vegetation where erosion, instead of carving hills and valleys of the familiar type, has cut the land into an intricate maze of narrow ravines and sharp crests and pinnacles. Travel across such a region is almost impossible, hence the name. (See Pls. VI—IX, pp. 62-63.)

Basalt. A common lava of dark color and of great fluidity when molten. Basalt is less siliceous than granite and rhyolite, and contains much more iron, calcium, and magnesium.

Bolson (pronounced bowl-sown'). A flat-floored desert valley that drains to a central evaporation pan or playa.

Bomb. See Volcanic bomb.

Breccia (pronounced bretch'a). A mass of naturally cemented angular rock fragments.

Crystalline rock. A rock composed of closely fitting mineral crystals that have formed in the rock substance as contrasted with one made up of cemented grains of sand or other material or with a volcanic glass.

Diabase. A heavy, dark, intrusive rock having the same composition as basalt, but, on account of its slower cooling, a more crystalline texture. Its principal constituent minerals are feldspar, augite, and usually olivine. Olivine is easily changed by weathering, and in many diabases is no longer recognizable. Augite is a mineral containing iron and magnesium and is similar to hornblende.

Dike. A mass of igneous rock that has solidified in a wide fissure or crack in the earth's crust. (See fig. 15, p. 95.)

Diorite. An even-grained intrusive igneous rock consisting chiefly of the minerals feldspar, hornblende, and very commonly black mica. If the rock contains muck quartz, it is called quartz diorite. Quartz diorite resembles granite and is connected with that rock by many intermediate varieties, including monzonite. The feldspar in diorite differs from that in granite in containing calcium and sodium instead of potassium. Hornblende is a green or black mineral containing iron, magnesium, calcium, and other constituents.

Dip. The slope of a rock layer expressed by the angle which the top or bottom of the layer makes with a horizontal plane. (See fig. 2, p. 17.)

Dissected. Cut by erosion into hills and valleys. Applicable especially to plains or peneplains in process of erosion after an uplift.

Dome. As applied to rock layers or beds, a short anticline, suggestive of an inverted basin.

Drift. The rock fragments—soil, gravel, and silt—carried by a glacier. Drift includes the unassorted material known as till and deposits made by streams flowing from a glacier.

Erosion. The wearing away of materials at the earth's surface by the mechanical action of running water, waves, moving ice, or winds, which use rock fragments and grains as tools or abrasives. Erosion is aided by weathering. (See Weathering.)

Fault. A fracture in the earth's crust accompanied by movement of the rock on one side of the break past that on the other. If the fracture is inclined and the rock on one side appears to have slid down the slope of the fracture the fault is termed a normal fault. If, on the other hand, the rock on one side appears to have been shoved up the inclined plane of the break, the fault is termed a reverse fault. (See fig. 20, p. 102; fig. 23, p. 112, and fig. 30, p. 143.)

Fault block. A part of the earth's crust bounded wholly or in part by faults.

Fault scarp. The cliff formed by a fault. Most fault scarps have been modified by erosion since the faulting.

Fauna. The animals that inhabited the world or a certain region at a certain time.

Fissure. A crack, break, or fracture in the earth's crust or in a mass of rock.

Flood plain. The nearly level land that borders a stream and is subject to occasional overflow. Flood plains are built up by sediment left by such overflows.

Flora. The assemblage of plants growing at a given time or in a given place.

Fold. A bend in rock layers or beds. Anticlines and synclines are the common types of folds. (See fig. 28, p. 129, and fig. 31, p. 144.)

Formation. A rock layer, or a series of continuously deposited layers grouped together, regarded by the geologist as a unit for purposes of description and mapping. A formation is usually named from some place where it is exposed in its typical character. For example, Denver formation, Niobrara limestone.

Fossil. The whole or any part of an animal or plant that has been preserved in the rocks or the impression left by a plant or animal. This preservation is in variably accompanied by change in substance, and from some impressions the original substance has all been removed. (See Pls. VI, A, p. 62; XI, B, p. 75.)

Gneiss (pronounced nice). A rock resembling granite, but with its mineral constituents so arranged as to give it a banded appearance. Most gneisses are metamorphic rocks derived from granite or other igneous rocks.

Granite. A crystalline igneous rock that has solidified slowly deep within the earth. It consists chiefly of the minerals quartz, feldspar, and one or both of the common kinds of mica, namely, black mica, or biotite, and white mica, or muscovite. The feldspar is the kind known as orthoclase, and may be distinguished from quartz by its pale-reddish tint and its property of breaking with flat shining surfaces (cleavage), for quartz breaks irregularly. The micas are easily recognized by their cleavage into thin, flexible flakes and their brilliant luster.

Horizon. In geology any distinctive plane traceable from place to place in different exposures of strata and marking the same period of geologic time. A particular horizon may be characterized by distinctive fossils.

Igneous rocks. Rocks formed by the cooling and solidification of a hot liquid material known as magma, that has originated at unknown depths within the earth. Those that have solidified beneath the surface are known as intrusive rocks, or, if the cooling has taken place slowly at great depth, as plutonic intrusive or plutonic rocks. Those that have flowed out over the surface are known as effusive rocks, extrusive rocks, or lavas. The term volcanic rocks includes not only lavas but bombs, pumice, tuff, volcanic ash, and other fragmental materials or ejecta thrown out from volcanoes.

Lithologic. Pertaining to lithology, or the study of rocks. (See also Petrology.) Pertaining to rock character.

Lode. An ore-bearing vein (see Vein); especially a broad or complex vein.

Loess (pronounced lurse with the r obscure). A fine homogeneous silt or loam showing usually no division into layers and forming thick and extensive deposits in the Mississippi Valley and in China. It is generally regarded as in part at least a deposit of wind-blown dust.

Meander. To flow in serpentine curves. A loop in a stream. The term comes from the Greek name of a river in Asia Minor, which has a sinuous course. Most streams in flowing across plains develop meanders. (See Pl. III, A, p. 11.)

Metamorphism. Any change in rocks effected in the earth by heat, pressure, solutions, or gases. A common cause of the metamorphism of rocks is the intrusion into them of igneous rocks. Rocks that have been so changed are termed metamorphic.

Monzonite. An even-grained intrusive igneous rock intermediate in character between diorite and granite. It resembles granite.

Moraine. A mass of drift deposited by a glacier at its end or along its sides.

Oil pool. An accumulation or body of oil in sedimentary rock that yields petroleum on drilling. The oil occurs in the pores of the rock and is not a pool or pond in the ordinary sense of these words.

Outcrop. That part of a rock that appears at the surface. The appearance of a rock at the surface or its projection above the soil.

Paleontology. The study of the world's ancient life, either plant or animal, by means of fossils.

Peneplain. A region reduced almost intro a plain by the long-continued normal erosion of a land surface. It should be distinguished from a plain produced by the attack of waves along a coast or the built-up flood plain of a river.

Petrography. The description of rocks, especially of igneous and metamorphic rocks, studied with the aid of the microscope.

Petrology. The study of rocks, especially of igneous and metamorphic rocks.

Placer deposit. A mass of gravel, sand, or similar material resulting from the crumbling and erosion of solid rocks and containing particles or nuggets of gold, platinum, tin, or other valuable minerals, which have been derived from rocks or veins by erosion.

Playa (pronounced plah'ya). The shallow central basin of a desert plain, in which water gathers after a rain and is evaporated.

Porphyry. Any igneous rock in which certain crystal constituents are distinctly visible in contrast with the finer-grained substance of the rock.

Quartzite. A rock composed of sand grains cemented by silica into an extremely hard mass.

Rhyolite. A lava, usually of light color, corresponding in chemical composition to granite. The same molten liquid that at great depth within the earth solidifies as granite would, if it flowed out on the surface, cool more quickly and crystallize less completely as rhyolite,

Schist. A rock that by subjection to heat and pressure within the earth has undergone a change in the character of the particles or minerals that compose it and has these minerals arranged in such a way that the rock splits more easily in certain directions than in others. A schist has a crystalline grain roughly comparable with the grain of a piece of wood.

Sedimentary rocks. Rocks formed by the accumulation of sediment in water (aqueous deposits) or from air (eolian deposits). The sediment may consist of fragments or particles of various sizes (conglomerate, sandstone, shale); of the remains or products of animals or plants (certain limestones and coal); of the product of chemical action or of evaporation (salt, gypsum, etc.); or of mixtures of these materials. Some sedimentary deposits (tuffs) are composed of fragments blown from volcanoes and deposited on land or in water. A characteristic feature of sedimentary deposits is a layered structure known as bedding or stratification. Each layer is a bed or stratum. Sedimentary beds as deposited lie flat or nearly flat.

Shale. A rock consisting of hardened thin layers of fine mud.

Slate. A rock that by subjection to pressure within the earth has acquired the property of splitting smoothly into thin plates. The cleavage is smoother and more regular than the splitting of schist along its grain.

Stratigraphy. The branch of geologic science that deals with the order and relations of the strata of the earth's crust.

Strike. The direction along which an inclined rock layer would meet the earth's surface if that surface were level. The outcrop (which see) of a bed on a plain is coincident with its strike.

Structure. In geology the forms assumed by sedimentary beds and igneous rocks that have been moved from their original position by forces within the earth or the forms taken by intrusive masses of igneous rock in connection with effects produced mechanically on neighboring rocks by the intrusion. Folds (anticlines and synclines) and faults are the principal mechanical effects considered under structure. Schistosity and cleavage are also structural features.

Syncline. An inverted arch of bedded or layered rock suggestive in form of a canoe. (See fig. 28, p. 129.)

Talus (pronounced tay'lus). The mass of loose rock fragments that accumulates at the base of a cliff or steep slope. (See Pl. XXII, B, p. 166.)

Terrace. A steplike bench on a hillside. Most teraces along rivers are remnants of valley bottoms formed when the stream flowed at higher levels. Other terraces have been formed by waves. Some teraces have been cut in solid rock, others have been built up of sand and gravel, and still others have been partly cut and partly built up. (See Pl. XX, p. 142.)

Till. The deposit of mingled bowlders, rock fragments, and soil left behind by a melting glacier or deposited about its margin.

Tuff. A rock consisting of a layer or layers of lava particles blown from a volcano. A fine tuff is often called volcanic ash and a coarse tuff is called breccia.

Type locality. The place at which a formation is typically displayed and from which it is named; also the place at which a fossil or other geologic feature is displayed in typical form.

Unconformity. A break in the regular succession of sedimentary rocks, indicated by the fact that one bed rests on the eroded surface of one or more beds which may have a distinctly different dip from the bed above. An unconformity may indicate that the beds below it have at some time been raised above the sea and have been eroded. In some places beds thousands of feet thick have been washed away before the land again became submerged and the first bed above the surface of unconformity was deposited. If beds of rock may be regarded as leaves in the volume of geologic history, an unconformity marks a gap in the record.

Vein. A mass of mineral material that has been deposited in or along a fissure in the rocks. A vein differs from a dike in that the vein material was introduced gradually by deposition from solution whereas a dike was intruded in a molten condition.

Volcanic bomb. A rounded mass of lava thrown out while in a hot and pasty condition from a volcano. A bomb, like a raindrop, is rounded in its passage through the air and may be covered with a cracked crust due to quick cooling.

Volcanic cone. A mountain or hill, usually of characteristic conical form, built up around a volcanic vent. The more nearly perfect cones are composed principally of lava fragments and volcanic ashes.

Volcanic glass. Lava that has cooled and solidified before it has had time to crystallize.

Volcanic neck. A plug of lava that formerly congealed in the pipe of a volcano. When the tuffs and lava flows that make up most of a volcano have been washed away by erosion the neck may remain as an isolated hill.

Volcanic rocks. Igneous rocks erupted at or near the earth's surface, including lavas, tuffs, volcanic ashes, and like material.

Weathering. The group of processes, such as the chemical action of air and rain water and of plants and bacteria and the mechanical action of changes of temperature, whereby rocks on exposure to the weather change in character, decay, and finally crumble into soil.