Glossary
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accretion
In geology, accretion is the attachment of igneous material (including pieces of Earth's crust, sediment, and belts of volcanoes called volcanic arcs) to masses of land (such as continents), making them larger. The word comes from Latin, "to grow."
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anadromous
Anadromous describes a species of fish that swims upstream, i.e., inland from the ocean, to spawn. The resulting juveniles spend some amount of time in the streams and rivers before swimming to the ocean to mature, renewing the cycle as spawning adults.
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anthropogenic climate warming
The warming of Earth caused by human activity.
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Art Deco style
An architectural style popular in Oregon from about 1920 to 1940, Art Deco features flat roofs, symmetrical or asymmetrical features, and decorative elements with minimal detail.
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Arts and Crafts style
An architectural style used primarily in Oregon between about 1900 and 1920, Arts and Crafts developed from an interest in handcrafted (or what appears to be handcrafted) construction and decoration. Stylistic elements include gable roofs with a steep pitch, large exterior chimneys, an asymmetrical design, and windows with many small panes.
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assemblage
In art, assemblage refers to incorporating everyday or found materials into artwork.
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assemblages
In archaeology, an assemblage describes artifacts that are connected to each other by time and place and help explain a human function or process. For example, a tool assemblage near an oven may help determine how food was prepared and served in a particular time and place.
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batten
When wooden boards are attached vertically to a structure, a batten—a thin wooden strip—is used to cover the exposed seam between the boards. The building is then described as having a board-and-batten exterior.
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Beaux Arts
A reference to l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, a French academic art school founded in Paris in 1671. Beaux Arts training was based on Classical studies and emphasized historical Greek and Roman models. The term often refers to Classical architecture and to the Renaissance revival styles that are based on it.
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benches
In geology, benches are bedrock shelves—that is, gently sloping terrain—that developed on Columbia River basalt lava flows.
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Betty Roberts discusses Anti Sex Discrimination Bill, 1969
Roberts discusses her anti sex discrimination bill with Keith Skelton during the 1969 State Senate session. Skelton told Roberts the House labor committee was working on a similar bill submitted by Constance McCready, prohibiting racial discrimination. He proposed amending the bill to include gender as well as race, and it passed the House with that language. Roberts advocated for a fair hearing in the Senate labor committee. Roberts and McCready both testified in front of the committee. Roberts describes a sexist comment made by a senator and her response. Click to listen to Roberts' oral history, move time marker to 11:48. https://digitalcollections.ohs.org/oral-history-interview-with-betty-roberts-sound-recording-22
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biogeochemical cycle
In geology, a cycle of biological (living) matter as it circulates through geological environments to form an ecosystem. A forest ecosystem, for example, is comprised of plants and animals that rely on elements in soil and water to live. A biogeochemical cycle is the process of exchange between living (e.g., trees) and nonliving (e.g., soil) parts of the ecosystem through a series of chemical reactions at the cellular level.
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bracket
In architecture, a bracket is a support—real or decorative—beneath an eave, balcony, or overhang.
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Bungalow style
A popular architectural style used primarily for houses, bungalows built in Oregon primarily between about 1905 and 1925. Bungalows have a low profile, a low-pitched roof, rectangular composition, and overhanging eaves. Most have large porches and often include a sleeping porch or veranda.
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carronade
A short-barreled gun that fired large shot at short range, used especially on warships during the late 18th and 19th centuries.
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caulker
A worker who hammers pitch or tar-soaked cotton into the seams between boards on a ship's deck and hull to make make them watertight.
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Chine collé
In art, the process of layering a thin sheet of paper (traditionally imported from China) over a larger, sturdier piece before running them together through a printing press. The technique is used in lithography and etching, for example, to create depth and color in the print. The term comes from French for China and glued.
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Classical architecture
A reference to the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, which have well-described structural and stylistic elements and standards of proportion. This historic architectural language has been imitated and adapted in various revival styles, and analogies to it are used by architectural historians to describe more recent developments in architectural style.
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clinker
In geology, chunks of solidified lava that float on top of flowing lava.
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community policing
The concept of community policing is over two centuries old. Its first reference, in Britain, was to "Principles of Democratic Policing." The practice is meant to prevent crime and limit intrusive actions by police by reshaping the adversarial relationship between the public and law enforcement into a partnership. In practice, community policing includes foot patrols to facilitate personal interactions and encourages police to work with residents to identify and solve crime-related problems.
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contiguous forests
Forests that are undeveloped and unparceled—that is, not interrupted by roads, buildings, or other structures.
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cornice
A decorative projection along the top of a facade. In Classical architecture, a cornice is the upper part of an entablature, which is the part of a building supported by columns.
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Craftsman style
In architecture, a style that in Oregon is synonymous with the Bungalow style.
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diatoms
In biology, diatoms are single-celled algae with cell walls made of silica. Found in nearly every water environment on Earth, they are a main source of food for zooplankton (such as fish larvae and marine microanimals) and an important source of atmospheric oxygen. Diatoms contribute to the development of harmful algae blooms (HABs), which in large part are caused by warming oceans. One species of diatom produces a dangerous neurotoxin that accumulates in algae blooms and spreads through fish populations.
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disjunct
In biology, disjunct distribution refers to the phenomenon of identical or related plant and animal species living in two (or more) separate regions that are a great distance from each other with no obvious migration route.
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dissected landscape
In geology, a dissected landscape is one that has been divided by crevices, canyons, and gorges as a result of long-term erosion, often by flowing water. It has the appearance of being "sliced into."
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dormer
A structure that extends outward from a roof and contains a window. A dormer usually has a gable roof, but it may be arched.
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eave
The edge of a roof that extends beyond the wall of the building.
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edaphic plant species
In botany, edaphic refers to soil, and an edaphic plant species is one that adapts to the physical, chemical, and mineral composition of a particular soil. The kind of soil in any area, therefore, determines which plants will thrive and which will not, a factor that is an integral part of the agricultural and forestry economy and that informs our understanding of how human activity affects plant and animal life. Some unusual edaphic plants are those that are adapted to the Siskiyou Mountains’ harsh ultra-mafic soils.
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edge habitat
In biology, an edge is the boundary line between distinct, adjoining habitats, such as where a forest meets a swamp. It can also refer to the boundary between a natural area and a farm, town, or city.
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El Niño event
In meteorology, an El Niño event refers to the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation when a band of warm ocean water develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific and pushes toward the west coasts of North and South America. The warmer waters affect the Pacific jet stream, leading to above average dry and warm weather in the northern U.S. and Canada and flooding in the Gulf and southeastern states.
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endemic species
An endemic species of plant or animal is one that is found only within a certain region or place.
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entablature
In Classical architecture, an entablature is the part of a building supported by columns and can include a cornice, a frieze, and architrave (molding around a door or window).
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epiphytes
In botany, epiphytes are plants, such as mosses and lichens, that grow on other plants for structural support but do not require sustenance (like parasites do).
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evaporative demand
Evaporative demand is the amount of water that leaves the surface of the Earth—from plants, soil, and bodies of water—as vapor. Temperature, wind, humidity, and cloud cover contribute to how much surface water turns to vapor. The higher the demand, the drier the surface becomes.
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evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration describes the combined processes of water moving from the surface of the Earth to the atmosphere, including evaporation and transpiration. It is the evaporation of water from plants that have absorbed moisture from the soil.
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façade
In architecture, a façade is the main or front face of a building.
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fish screens
Mesh structures that allow water to pass through but stop fish from entering irrigation channels, where they are at risk of being stranded and dying. Fish screens generally either divert fish from a channel or allow fisheries biologists to collect and relocate them.
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Forest succession
Forest succession is the establishment and progression of vegetation, particularly in reaction to a significant disruption such as fire, timber harvesting, or climate change. The stages of forest succession generally follow a pattern of recovery—from grasses to shrubs to trees.
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Fresnel lens
A composite of many concentric lenses that disperses light so that it is visible at a distance. In the 1810s, Augustin Fresnel, an employee of the Lighthouse Commission in France, used the new wave theory of light to design the lens, which has several glass prisms and a lamp at the center. Fresnel lenses are still used in some lighthouses today.
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frieze
In architecture, a horizontal band or strip on a wall or façade that is sometimes decorative. In Classical architecture, it is the middle part of an entablature.
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gable
In architecture, the triangular portion of an exterior wall formed by the slanted pitch of a ridged roof. A gable roof has a ridge line from which the two sides of the roof extend; the gables are at each end.
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gas vesicles
Gas vesicles are thin, tube-like structures found in planktonic bacteria that allow the organisms to regulate their depth in water. Made of proteins, the vesicles are hollow and capped, dense enough to stop water from passing through but permeable to gases. The gas-filled vesicles create buoyancy, sending the bacteria toward the surface and sunlight, where photosynthesis can take place. Water pressure will collapse the vesicles, reducing buoyancy. Organisms with strong vesicles are better able to withstand higher water pressure, giving them an advantage over less-adaptable species.
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geopotential
geopotential refers to the altitude above sea level at which atmospheric pressure is 500 millibars (average pressure at sea level on Earth is about 1,013 millibars, on average).
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glacial cirques
In geology, the bowl-shaped depressions carved out by glaciers in high-elevation landscapes. Cirques often fill with water to form lakes.
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glacial refugia
In geology, glacial refugia are areas that remained ice-free during the Ice Age (ending about 10,000 years ago) and became refuges for plants and animals. Many species now common in the Pacific Northwest survived the Ice Age in a refugium.
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Gothic revival style
An architectural style popular in Oregon from about 1850 until 1885 and, in a revival period, in the 1920s. The style is based on medieval church and castle designs and is characterized by windows and doors with pointed top arches, a steep gable roof, and projecting dormer windows.
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Greek revival style
An architectural style popular in Oregon between 1840 and 1865 that adapted elements of Classical architecture used in ancient Greece, including bilateral symmetry, porches supported by columns, pilasters at building corners, a low-pitched gable roof, and a complete entablature.
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half-timbering
A construction method that frames a building using hewn timbers and filling the area between the timbers with brick or plaster. The form was imitated during the 19th and 20th centuries, although the timbering and infill plaster or brick were not structural.
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highstand
In geology, highstand is the deepest water during a cycle (e.g., a glacial cycle) or time period.
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housing covenants
Covenants are legal conditions tied to the ownership or use of a property; that is, the covenant "runs with the land" from owner to owner. For example, covenants are used to impose height restrictions on construction and shrubbery or to set the terms of housing associations. Historically, they were used in the United States to restrict the sale or lease of land to people of certain races--e.g., to exclude nonwhites from parts of a city. It was common for houses in a some neighborhoods to have a racial covenant attached to deeds, prohibiting owners from selling the property to nonwhite buyers. The practice had the effect of segregating neighborhoods by race and making nonwhite neighborhoods victims of predatory lenders, underfunded schools and community services, and urban renewal. Housing covenants are now illegal, but their legacy persists.
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igneous rocks
Igneous rocks form when molten (melted) rock cools and becomes solid. They can be either plutonic (intrusive), which cool slowly and solidify beneath the surface of the Earth, or volcanic (extrusive), which erupt as lava, cool rapidly, and solidify on the surface or in the atmosphere.
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in dicta
A judge's statement or opinion that has no legal bearing on the case before the court. In Latin, "in" means "not" or "without"; "dicta" means an "authoritative statement.' In dicta, then, translates to "not an authoritative statement"or "without authority."
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Indian Country
Indian Country is a general term used to refer to anyplace where Native people live in communities, large or small. Before 1834, "Indian Country" referred to land in North America that was beyond the boundaries of European settlements, which by the 18th century generally referred to land west of the Appalachians. The 1834 Indian Intercourse Act designated "Indian Territory" as land west of the Mississippi River "to which the Indian title has not been extinguished." In 1948, the U.S. Congress defined "Indian Country" as federal reservations, "dependent Indian communities," and allotments of land with Indian title holders.
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International style
In architecture, a movement that emphasizes functional and sometimes minimalist design and that strips decorative elements and traditional stylistic approaches from the architectural vocabulary. International Style was first applied in Europe during the 1910s and was developed after World War I. The style has dominated architecture since about 1950.
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Italianate style
An architectural style that was popular in Oregon, especially for public and commercial buildings, between about 1860 and 1890. The style features tall, arched windows (especially noticeable on cast iron-front buildings), flat or low-pitched gable roofs, and extensive ornamentation that imitates some characteristics of stone construction, such as columns and quoins. Italianate buildings can also have heavy eaves or projections with decorative brackets beneath them, bay windows, and a tower.
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kolk lakes
Kolk lakes are the remnants of an underwater vortex, or kolk, created when a rushing river or falls passes over an underwater obstacle, such as a boulder, and becomes a rotating column of water forceful enough to displace the obstacle, leaving a pit or basin behind. Once the river dries up, the impression remains, often filling with water to create a pond or lake. These are found in the Columbia River, where they sometimes support HABs.
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Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
The LGM refers to a particular climatic event that occurred during the last glacial cycle, approximately 20,000 years ago. The name, in part, describes the extent of the glacial coverage during that period on the Earth's surface: approximately 25 percent of the planet's land area. In contrast, today, only 11 percent of Earth's land area is covered by glaciers.
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mafic rock
In geology, mafic rocks are dark-colored igneous-to-metamorphosed-igneous rocks made of minerals that are high in magnesium ("ma") and iron ("ferric").
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metamorphic rock
Metamorphism in the process where by one kind of rock (for example, sandstone) is changed by eons of massive pressure and heat into a different kind of rock (such as quartzite). Some metamorphic rocks include gneiss, marble, and schist. Through metamorphism, rocks change shape, become denser, and rearrange their mineral compositions to become something new. "Metamorphic intensity" is the measure of the pressure/temperature conditions at the time of the metamorphism.
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millibar
A millibar is a unit of atmospheric pressure equal to one thousandth (10−3) of a bar. Standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 1,013 millibars. (Merriam-Webster)
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moraine
A moraine consists of the mound-like landforms made up of the rocks and soil carried and pushed along by the movement of a glacier. Moraines can look like rubble, lines, mounds, ridges of rock, or uneven grassland, depending on what part of the glacier has dislodged and carried the material. The side of a glacier will leave lateral moraines, which form ridges or rims on valley walls. Ridges in the center of valleys are formed when moraines from two different glaciers collide. Material that gets picked up/pushed by the front of a glacier forms a clump of rocks and soil called a terminal morain. Ground moraines, the most common, are made of accumulating sediments beneath glaciers, creating irregular landscapes covered in grass or other vegetation.
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natural selection
Natural selection, also known as the “survival of the fittest,” is naturalist Charles Darwin’s term (1869) for the process of adaptation by living organisms to change in their environments. Variants within a species–that is, physical differences among members of the same species–are evidence of genetic changes from one generation to the next. The genetic adaptations that help a species survive are passed down to offspring. Members of a species group who do not possess those genetic adaptations are less likely to thrive and reproduce. In that way, a variation, over time, becomes a dominant characteristic in the species.
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nitrogen-fixing
Nitrogen-fixing describes the process of transferring atmospheric nitrogen directly into plant tissue. Nitrogen is essential to all living organisms and can be found most abundantly (78%) in the atmosphere. Most plants, however, are unable to absorb di-nitrogen (N2) from the air and depend on microorganisms to turn nitrogen into usable form, which accumulate in the soil and dissolve in water. Plants, such as blue-green algae, which are able to absorb nitrogen directly from the air have an advantage over other plant species in nitrogen-poor waterways and soils.
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Northwest Regional style
A regional variant of the International style of architecture that was popular in the Pacific Northwest between 1935 and 1960. The Northwest Regional style makes extensive use of wood frame construction and unpainted wood finishes on both the interior and exterior of a building. An emphasis is on integrating the building with its setting through asymmetrical floor plans, glass extending to the floor, a low-pitched or flat shingled roof with overhanging eaves, and a minimum of decoration.
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pediment
In architecture, a decorative triangular cap over a door or window.
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peneplain
In geology, a mostly featureless, flat landscape interrupted by slightly higher elevations of land that have yet to be eroded or transported by rivers and streams. If erosion continues, the landscape becomes a plain--that is, it becomes uniformly flat. An elevated peneplain or plain is called a plateau. In Latin, "pene" means "almost."
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photogravure
The process of reproducing photographs using ink, invented in Britain by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1840. The process involves etching the image on a negative into a metal sheet, usually copper, which is soaked in an acid bath. The etched plate is then inked, wiped clean of the excess, and pressed against slightly wet paper to make a detailed imprint. The process allowed photographers to mass-produce prints using ink instead of relying on a darkroom.
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plate tectonics
In geology, plate tectonics is a scientific theory that explains the formation of major landforms by the movement of Earth's various “plates” that make up its outermost layer, or crust, along the top of a deeper, molten layer. Tectonic plates include the various oceanic plates as well as the remnants of an ancient supercontinent that broke into pieces and slowly separated, forming the continents that exist today. When the plates collided, they formed mountains, volcanoes, trenches, and fault lines at the points of collision. The geological landscape depends on whether one plate slides under the other (subduction), both plates thrust upward (continental collision), or the plates slide or grind against each other to create transform faults. Plates also form geological features, such as ocean basins, when they move away from each other.
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pluton
Plutons are igneous rocks that in their magma form were intruded into pre-existing rocks and then cooled slowly, all beneath Earth's surface. Because the cooling period is so slow, plutonic rocks have time to form visible crystals, which can grow quite large. The sizes and shapes of plutons have specific names, including batholiths (over 40 square miles) and boss stocks (smaller than about 40 square miles). Plutons become visible on the surface through erosion. The name "pluton" is a reference to Pluto, the Roman god of the Underworld.
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Queen Anne style
An architectural style that was extremely popular in Oregon from about 1880 until 1900, Queen Ann buildings incorporate an asymmetrical plan, a variety of roof types (including large gables and turrets or towers), porches and bay windows, and windows that are arched or rectangular, pilastered or recessed.
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radiometric dating
A way to determine how old geologic materials are, in years, based on how much of a radioactive isotope, such as Carbon-14, is present. Isotopes are elements that belong to the same family on the Periodic Table because they have the same number of protons (that is, positively charged subparticles) but different numbers of neutrons (that is, subparticles with no charge). The “parent” isotope decays over time into a “daughter” isotope at a consistent rate, and geologists measure the ratio of parent-to-daughter to determine the age of rocks and other materials. The potassium-argon method is often used in radiometric dating.
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redlining
Redlining began in the United States in the 1930s as a discriminatory practice of denying housing loans to applicants who wanted to refinance or buy property in what were called “D" zones, neighborhoods that were marked on real estate maps as a risky investment because of their ethnic or racial makeup and other factors such as income level. The result was the disinvestment of entire neighborhoods, where property owners became ineligible for New Deal assistance programs that staved off foreclosures. When the Fair Housing Act became law in 1968, such discrimination was prohibited and banks were forced to release lending data, which exposed decades of widespread and systematic race-based real-estate and banking practices. The term "redlining" now refers to any form of racist housing policy, including the overuse of eminent domain in nonwhite neighborhoods and the rezoning of Black residential areas.
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redskins
The term "redskins" has been used in the United States as a pejorative aimed at Native people since the 19th century and was a common racial slur when Hargreaves was writing her novel. Because she often wrote sympathetically about Indigenous people, it is possible she leaned on the term's early use as a descriptor; but the title would have been jarring for Native people and indicative of the hostility, prejudice, and indifference of white writers and readers to the lasting effects of settler colonialism.
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resettlement
A resettler was a non-Indigenous person who permanently settled in present-day Oregon from about 1840 to 1859. The term resettlement describes the non-Indigenous displacement of Indigenous people and counters the fiction that present-day Oregon had no settled people before the migration to the region during the Oregon Trail era.
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Revival styles
In architecture, styles that are based on historic works from a variety of periods and places. Such style include Classic and Gothic revivals in the mid-19th century and from the 1910s through the 1930s. Popular revivals between about 1890 and 1940 include Colonial (a reference to American colonies during the 1700s), Tudor, Jacobethan (a combination of Jacobean and Elizabethan in England from about 1580 to 1620), Spanish Colonial or Mission (Spanish California), Pueblo (Southwest American Indian), French and Italian Renaissance, Romanesque, Egyptian, Classical Greek, Classical Roman, and Norman (French) rural. It is not unusual to find elements of more than one style in a building.
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Richardsonian Romanesque style
An American architectural style designed for stone or brick construction, named for Boston architect H.H. Richardson. Some commercial, educational, and residential buildings were built in this style in Oregon between about 1885 and 1895. The style is associated with an appearance of great mass and weight, round-arched doors and windows, flat roofs, and rough-faced stone.
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Second Empire style
In architecture, a style sometimes known as the French mansard style after the mansard roof, its most distinctive characteristic. The name, which derives from the Second French Empire of Napoleon III (1851-1870), is primarily in Oregon buildings constructed from about 1865 to 1880.
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sedimentary rocks
Pieces of rocks that have broken because of weather, such as wind or water, and carried to a basin or depression, where they are trapped with other pieces of rocks and compacted and cemented together over time. Sedimentary rocks can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a boulder and include limestone, sandstone, and shale.
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seed sources
In botany, a seed source is a group of plants, such as a stand of trees or an orchard. It is not a seed tree, which is a single plant from which seeds are gathered.
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stratigraphy
In geology, stratigraphy is the study of rock layers, whether those layers are exposed or lie beneath the surface of the Earth, including how they are arranged, the differing ages of the layers (”strata”), and their composition.
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tephra
The solid, fragmented material ejected into the air by a volcanic explosion.
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terra cotta
An exterior building material made of clay that has been fired for durability. Terra cotta is commonly white or reddish-brown but can be found in many colors, and is usually glazed to apply a shine to the surface. In Oregon, it was popular in steel-framed office buildings, department stores, theaters, churches, and schools from about 1905 until 1940.
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terrane
In geology, a terrane is a segment of Earth's crust that is distinct in structure and geologic history from the other terranes adjoining it. Terranes are bounded by faults, or factures. That means they have likely been moved (by plate tectonics) and explains why they can be so different from other land formations around them. Continents grow in landmass as they accumulate, or accrete, terranes that collide with the continent through the crustal movement of plate tectonics. An "accreted terrane" is one that is permanently attached to a continental plate.
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troposphere
The troposphere is the lowest, densest part of Earth's atmosphere in which most weather occurs and temperature generally decreases rapidly with altitude. It extends from the earth's surface to the bottom of the stratosphere, which is about seven miles high.
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white paper
A research-based document that describes problems to be solved on a specific topic and recommends solutions. It is meant to educate and guide readers.