|
|
Post by parfive on Sept 28, 2018 17:02:16 GMT -5
In 1822, the Belgian stratigrapher J. J. d’Omalius d’Halloy, working for the French government, put a name on the chalk of Europe which would come to represent an ungainly share of geologic time. Collectively, d’Halloy called the English downlands and the white sea cliffs and the bottom of the Channel and Dry Champagne—and so forth—Le Terrain Crétacé. Chalky, it surely was, and soon the word not only made the jump from adjective to adjectival noun but also from geologic system to geologic period—from rock to time. With the arguable exception of the Carboniferous, the Cretaceous is the only period in the forty-six hundred million years of the earth’s history that was directly named for a rock.
John McPhee – Season on the Chalk
|
|
|
|
Post by mohs on Sept 28, 2018 18:45:45 GMT -5
the dry champagne got me adjectivally thinking  chalk one up for mohs |
|
