Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A nearly flat land surface representing an advanced stage of erosion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To reduce by erosion to a peneplain.
- noun In geology, a surface reduced by erosion nearly to the condition of a plain. There are many examples of once lofty mountains, now reduced to peneplains.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Phys. Geog.) A land surface reduced by erosion to the general condition of a plain, but not wholly devoid of hills; a base-level plain.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geology A low-
relief plain representing the final stage offluvial erosion during times of extendedtectonic stability .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a more or less level land surface representing an advanced stage of erosion undisturbed by crustal movements
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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All the time, then, that the forces of the atmosphere are wearing down the surface of the earth to the sea level the sea is rising and its waves are producing a plain of marine denudation which rises slowly to meet the peneplain which is produced by degradation.
Popular Science Monthly Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 Anonymous
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All the time, then, that the forces of the atmosphere are wearing down the surface of the earth to the sea level the sea is rising and its waves are producing a plain of marine denudation which rises slowly to meet the peneplain which is produced by degradation.
The Scientific Monthly, October-December 1915 Scientific Monthly 1915
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The Park comprises an interfluvial peneplain of schist and granite between the Comoé and Volta rivers, with a mean altitude of 250 m to 300 m and a series of ridges and granite inselbergs rising to 600 m.
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The park comprises an ancient sloping granitic peneplain.
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The Park forms the extreme peneplain extension of the old massif of Atakora.
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The Park consists of a lateritic peneplain, with rock outcrops of quartz, schists and gneisses.
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It slopes southwest from the watershed between the Nile and Congo rivers, part of an ancient peneplain interrupted by mostly granitic inselbergs, threaded by gallery forests, with large marshland depressions.
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One area within this ecoregion that has been well-studied is the level Casiquiare peneplain (lowland) in Venezuela which hosts a mosaic of forests, savannas, and other types of herbaceous vegetation.
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This is best exemplified in the distribution of the freshwater fish fauna, where the lowland streams have the highest species richness, the second peneplain fewer, and the upper peneplain streams support a limited fish fauna.
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Tertiary soils in the peneplain are derived from gneiss and granitic rocks, while Quaternary sediments overlaying the bottom of broad U-shaped valleys such as Tucavaca Valley, which supports the taller forest.
mollusque commented on the word peneplain
n., an erosional surface of considerable extent and slight relief, an endrumpf (also peneplane); v., to erode into a peneplain.
December 11, 2007