1word1day | Entries tagged with geology

fumarole [fyoo-muh-rohl]

noun:
a hole in or near a volcano, from which vapor rises

(click to enlarge)

Examples:

On Wednesday afternoon, Popocatépetl emitted a huge fumarole that split in the middle, eventually taking the shape of a giant heart as it rose into the sky. (Flights suspended in Puebla as Popocatépetl volcano grumbles, The Washington Post, Mexico News Daily 2024)

Gas vents, also known as fumaroles, are also activating around the volcano's summit and Crater Peak vents, the latter being the location where the 1953 and the 1992 eruptions occurred. (Sam Walters, Activity at Alaska’s Mount Spurr Suggests That The Volcano Is About To Erupt, Discover, May 2025)

Downhill from Viti, the landscape belches audible steam blasts from a fumarole at Hverir, a misty, moody landscape with hiking paths that go past scalding ponds not far from the warm Myvatn Nature Baths, where we recovered from our hikes and talked geology with the Danish couple. (Elaine Glusac, Driving Iceland’s Overlooked North, The New York Times, June 2022)

He did the trick with a fumarole of cigarette smoke escaping from her lips. ( Robert D McFadden, Hiro, Fashion Photographer Who Captured the Surreal, Dies at 90, The New York Times, August 2021)

In ordinary climates, a fumarole, or volcanic vapour-well, may be detected by the thin cloud of steam above it, and usually one can at once feel the warmth by passing one's hand into the vapour column, but in the rigour of the Antarctic climate the fumaroles of Erebus have their vapour turned into ice as soon as it reaches the surface of the snow plain. (Ernest Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic)

Directly overhead, in the face of an almost perpendicular cliff, were three of the cavern mouths, which had the aspect of volcanic fumaroles. (Clark Ashton Smith, The Seven Geases)

Origin:

Italian fumarola, from Italian dialect (Neapolitan), from Late Latin fumariolum vent, from Latin fumarium smoke chamber for aging wine, from fumus (Merriam Webster)

sallymn

scree [skree]

noun:
an accumulation of loose stones or rocky debris lying on a slope or at the base of a hill or cliff; a steep mass of detritus on the side of a mountain

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Examples:

The term scree refers to an accumulation of pieces of broken rock. These rocks have come loose from surrounding cliffs and mountainsides during rockfalls. After rolling, bouncing, and sliding down nearly vertical cliffs, these rocks come to rest in one concentrated heap. Generally speaking, scree is most commonly found at the foot of volcanoes, valleys, mountain cliffs, and crags. (Amber Pariona, What Is A Scree?, WorldAtlas, August 2017)

There's an art to running down scree slopes, which my friend demonstrated, where one 'surfs' along the surface of the debris. She pulled away like a motor boat from a jetty, generating a clattering wave of cascading rock, leaving me to tread cautiously in her wake. (Rose Lu, As I bum-shuffled my way down the scree at Avalanche Peak I wished I was back in the bush, Te Papa Blog, January 2022)

I've never spent much time thinking about what might be growing on the tumbles of rocks cascading down the mountain slopes so when we stepped onto our first scree I was surprised to see that there were actually plants present. (Lara Shepherd, Living life on the edge - plants of screes, Te Papa Blog, January 2015)

The scree field was a steep slope covered in shards of loose gray rock. You can try running, stepping carefully, and angling your feet as though you were in second position in ballet - feet are in a parallel line, separated and turned outward. No matter what you do, at some point, the scree robs you of upward movement. (Maryann Karinch, Do You Feel Like You're Climbing a Scree Field? , Psychology Today, August 2020)

It has a copious scree at the foot, and more than half-way up it divides into three. (W P Haskett Smith, Climbing in The British Isles)

Origin:

'pile of debris at the base of a cliff or steep mountainside,' 1781, a back-formation from screes (plural) 'pebbles, small stones,' from Old Norse skriða 'landslide.' This is from the verb skriða 'to creep, crawl;' of a ship, 'to sail, glide,' also 'to slide' (on snow-shoes), from Proto-Germanic skreithanan (source also of Old English scriþan 'to go, glide,' Old Saxon skridan, Dutch schrijden, Old High German scritan, German schreiten 'to stride'). (Online Etymology Dictionary)

med_cat

Ventifact, n. [ven-tuh-fakt]

Geology. a pebble or cobble that has been faceted, grooved, and polished by the erosive action of wind-driven sand.

Examples:

The surface was a fine trash of ventifacts --stones that had been polished into smooth facets by blowing grit ...

Sarah Andrews, In Cold Pursuit, 2007

A little world, and completely filled with small black boulders, like fossil balls from various sports, only all black, and all faceted to one extent or another. They were ventifacts.

Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars, 1994

Ventifact, “stone shaped by the wind or sandstorms,” is a rare word, used in geology and physical geography, and is modeled on the much earlier noun artifact (artefact), which dates from the mid-17th century. Ventifact derives straightforwardly from Latin ventum “wind” ( venti- is the Latin combining form) and factum, the past participle, also used as a noun, of the verb facere “to make, do” (with as many senses as the English verbs). Latin ventum is related to English wind, winnow, and weather. Latin facere and the adjective facilis “easy, easy to do” derive from a very common Proto-Indo-European root dhē- “to put, place, set,” from which Germanic (English) derives do and deed, Greek tithénai “to set, put,” and Slavic (Polish) dzieje “history” (i.e., things done, deeds). Ventifact entered English in the early 20th century.

(Source: dictionary.com)

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Word of the Day!

Entries tagged with geology

Sunday Word: Fumarole

Sunday Word: Scree

Friday word: Ventifact

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