Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Feedback The property of a system such that, when change is introduced via one of the
variables in the system, its transmission through the system leads back to a change in
the original variable.
Felsenmeer A German term for blockfield .
Felsic A mnenomic from fel dspar and si li c ate, which identifies the silicate-rich igneous
rocks characterized by their light-coloured, acidic minerals.
Fetch The extent of open water over which a dominant wind develops a wave system.
Field capacity The maximum volume of water held in the voids of a soil when
gravitational drainage is complete, comprised of capillary and hygroscopic water.
Firn A stage in the transformation of snowpack towards glacial ice, with a density of
0·4-0·5 × 10 3 kg m −3 .
Fissure A wide fault or tension crack in the land surface often associated with a linear
volcanic eruption.
Fixation The transformation in soil of a plant nutrient from an available to an
unavailable state.
Fjord A long, deep rock basin excavated by an outlet or valley glacier between high rock
walls and flooded by the sea during deglaciation.
Flandrian stage The current global temperate stage , more or less synonymous with the
Holocene, which commenced c . 10,000 years BP.
Flexural isostasy Localized isostatic adjustment peripheral to, and in an opposite
direction from, an area of crustal loading or unloading; due to flexure or creep in the
lithosphere.
Flocculation The aggregation of individual suspended clay particles into larger masses,
with consequential implications for their sediment dynamics.
Flood basalt An extensive basalt flow extruded from continental rifts and fissures which
forms distinctive terrestrial land surfaces.
Flood plain A lowland land surface prone to episodic river floods and associated alluvial
sedimentation.
Flow regime The range of styles of stream flow and their related bed forms and modes of
sediment transport.
Flow tuff A lithified form of volcanic ash which once moved as a pyroclastic flow and
contains evidence of that movement, often in the form of parallel extruded minerals.
Fluid stressing The erosive power of a stream contributed by fluid shear stress at the
stream bed.
Flysch Submarine turbidite sediments eroded from an orogenic belt during uplift and
therefore located in adjacent trench or back-arc zones.
Föhn An equivalent of the chinook wind in the European Alps.
Fold A compressional or gravitational plastic deformation of Earth materials which has
bent and shortened a previously planar mass.
Foliation A close-spaced planar texture in rock acquired by the alignment of platy
minerals during metamorphism .
Force Mass × acceleration measured in newtons, N (SI units).
Fore arc A zone lying between and parallel to the trench and volcanic arc of a B-
subduction zone, consisting of an outer ridge and an inner basin.
Fore - arc basin A narrow marine basin lying just offshore of a volcanic island arc in a B-
subduction zone.
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