Word Finder - subsidence

definition

The process of becoming less active or severe.

definition

A sinking of something to a lower level, especially of part of the surface of the Earth due to underground excavation or seismic activity or groundwater depletion

After the subsidence came another period of uplift, possibly still in progress.

Borings and soundings taken at Funafuti in 1897 indicate almost beyond doubt that the whole of this Polynesian region is an area of comparatively recent subsidence.

With the gradual subsidence of these areas their culture would necessarily degenerate, although echoes of sublime theogonies and philosophies are still heard in the oral traditions and folklore of many Polynesian groups.

The conditions favourable to the production of coal seem therefore to have been-forest growth in swampy ground about the mouths of rivers, and rapid oscillation of level, the coal produced during subsidence being covered up by the sediment brought down by the river forming beds of sand or clay, which, on re-elevation, formed the soil for fresh growths, the alternation being occasionally broken by the deposit of purely marine beds.

There resulted a widespread and violent though ephemeral controversy, after the subsidence of which he published a Lecture on Tradition, which passed through several editions, and a volume on The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.

The mines suffered greatly from inundations in 1868 and 1879, and the soil on which the town is built shows signs of subsidence.

The lakes of Albano and Nemi were probably formed by volcanic explosions at the margin of the great crater; though a view has also been expressed that the basins are the result of subsidence.

The Funafuti borings (1897) show almost beyond doubt that Polynesia is an area of comparatively recent subsidence.

Rock-filling yields and becomes consolidated under heavy pressure, and therefore does not furnish a rigid support of the overlying strata, but rather a cushion to control and equalize the subsidence.

From Schleswig eastwards to Lubeck Bay the coast is pierced by a number of narrow openings or Fohrden, the result of encroachment of the sea caused by subsidence.

The lakes of Iceland owe their origin to different causes, some being due to glacial erosion, others to volcanic subsidence.

Divergent opinions have been held as to the mode of origin of the East African lakes, especially Tanganyika, which some geologists have considered to represent an old arm of the sea, dating from a time when the whole central Congo basin was under water; others holding that the lake water has accumulated in a depression caused by subsidence.

A massive underwater land slump or partial subsidence suddenly left the highly pressurized magma chamber wide open.

Movements of the land either of subsidence or elevation, changes in the land by the action of erosion in cutting back an escarpment or cutting through a col, changes in climate by affecting the rainfall and the volume of water, all tend to throw the river valley out of harmony with the actual condition of its stream.

The atolls on the south and east side of the bank, which has a circumference of about 270 m., have disappeared through subsidence; a few - Egmont, Danger, Eagle, and Three Brothers - still remain on the east side, but most of the population (about 700) is centred on Diego Garcia, which lies on the south-east side, and is nearly 13 m.

Projecting like a bastion into the Mediterranean at a very central point, Cyrenaica seems intended to play a commercial part; but it does not do so to any extent because of (1) lack of natural harbours, Bengazi and Derna having only open and dangerous roads (this is partly due to coastal subsidence; ancient ports have sunk); (2) the difficulty of the desert routes behind it, wells beings singularly deficient in this part of the Sahara.

The Cretaceous period was initiated by the subsidence of a large area to the south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, whereby a Lower Cretaceous sea spread southward, across western Queensland, western New South Wales and the north-eastern districts of South Australia.

A theory of a still continuing subsidence of the islands was formed by Kurz in 1866 and confirmed by Oldham in 1884.

Similarly, the subsidence of malaria during cold weather and its seasonal prevalence find an adequate explanation in the conditions governing insect life.

These were at one time more numerous than at the present day; earthquakes and subsidence of foundations have brought many of them down, the latest to fall being the great tower of San Marco itself, which collapsed on July 14th, 1902.

Some of the more viscous crude oils obtained in the United States are employed as lubricants under the name of " natural oils," either without any treatment or after clarification by subsidence and filtration through animal charcoal.

Second, the general subsidence of the coast has sunk the lower-lying parts of the ancient town under water.

Owing to the pumping of the brine for the salt-works there is a continual subsidence of the ground, detrimental to the buildings, and new houses are mostly built in the suburbs.

The subsidence of the latter usually lasts until October.

On his return from exile, after the subsidence of the Tatar deluge, he found his kingdom in ashes; and his two great remedies, wholesale immigration and castle-building, only sowed the seeds of fresh disasters.

Where each floor is timbered by itself with light timbers, as is the practice on the continent of Europe, the consolidation of the rock-filling under pressure gives rise to considerable subsidence of the unmined ore, which has frequently settled 20 ft.

One steadily exercised influence is constantly at work, for the shores bordering the Pacific Ocean are slowly though appreciably rising, while on the side of the Japan Sea a corresponding subsidence is taking place.

An interesting local phenomenon is that of lake Tequesquiten, which was formed by the subsidence of a large area of ground about the middle of the 19th century, carrying with it an old town of the same name.

The provision of a new graving dock adjoining the Alexandra was delayed in October 1905 by a subsidence of the ground during its construction.

Tanganyika has been formed by the subsidence of a long narrow tract of country relatively to the surrounding plateaus, which fall to the lake in abrupt cliffs, some thousands of feet high in places.

The important part played by the residual air in the globe had also been deduced by Osborne Reynolds from observing that on turning off the light, the vanes came to rest very much sooner than the friction of the pivot alone would account for; in fact, the rapid subsidence is an illustration of Maxwell's great theoretical discovery that viscosity in a gas (as also diffusion both of heat and of the gas itself) is sensibly independent of the density.

It is of irregular form, consisting of two distinct mountainous parts, united by a low isthmus, which a slight subsidence would submerge.

The continental shelves include not only the oceanic border of the continents but also great areas of the enclosed seas and particularly of the fringing seas, the origin of which through secular subsidence is often very clearly apparent, as for instance in the North Sea and the tract lying off the mouth of the English Channel.

With careful packing it is estimated that the surface subsidence will not exceed 40% of the thickness of the seam removed, and will usually be considerably less.

Back of the islands are the quiet waters of lagoons, and at the mouths of rivers are several shallow bays indenting the mainland; these bays were formed by only a slight subsidence of the land and the rivers are filling them with deposits of silt.

The lower Hudson, below Troy, is really a fiord, the stream valley being drowned by the sea through subsidence of the land.

A still greater subsidence farther north produced Puget Sound.

The chief cause of this subsidence was the division among the reformers themselves.

In many places there are different channels for high and low water, the latter being partly filled by each freshet, and recut after each subsidence; and the river meanders tortuously through the alluvial bottom in scores of great bends, loops and cut-offs.

Superficially, the continuity of the zone is broken at intervals by gaps of greater or less extent; but these are due, in part at least, to the subsidence of portions of the folded belt and their subsequent burial by more recent accumulations.

The Russian expedition which investigated the Kara-boghaz in 1896 concluded that there is no permanent subsidence in the level of the sea.

That a rapid subsidence did take place from the higher level is indicated by the fact that between it and the present level there is an absence of indications of erosive energy.

Ansgar preached in Denmark from 826 to 861, but it was not till after the subsidence of the Viking raids that Adaldag, archbishop of Hamburg, could open a new and successful mission, which resulted in the erection of the bishoprics of Schleswig, Ribe and Aarhus (c. 948), though the real conversion of Denmark must be dated from the baptism of King Harold Bluetooth (960).

The existence of ancient lacustrine beaches, upheaved between the two basins by volcanic agencies or left dry by some enlargement of the San Juan outfall, and a consequent subsidence of the water-level, seems to indicate that the lakes were formerly united.

The subsidence within is less rapid than the rise; and the streams are impassable for about seven months in each year.

It does not, however, form a delta proportionate to the volume of its water, owing to a strong sea current flowing northwards close to the shore, to the sudden sinking of the sea to a great depth immediately off the mouth of the river, and possibly also to the permanent subsidence of the Italian coast from the Tiber .mouth southwards to Terracina.

After the uplift came a period of subsidence, during which this region sank one or more thousand feet, allowing the sea to encroach on the land and run far inland into the previously made river valleys.

To this subsidence are due the picturesque coastal scenery, the numerous islands and bays, the good harbours and the peculiar coast-line.

The legend may be a greatly exaggerated version of some actual subsidence of inhabited land.

This cutting off was caused largely by subsidence, though partly by marine action.