- Industry: Biology
- Number of terms: 15386
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Terrapsychology is a word coined by Craig Chalquist to describe deep, systematic, trans-empirical approaches to encountering the presence, soul, or "voice" of places and things: what the ancients knew as their resident genius loci or indwelling spirit. This perspective emerged from sustained ...
The perceived split between people and nature normally traced back to French philosopher Rene Descartes but with roots in monotheism, Plato, and still older sources. Val Plumwood has named five features that characterize dualism: backgrounding, radical exclusion, incorporation, instrumentalism, and homogenization.
Industry:Biology
A scale that measures the vast amounts of time over which geological changes occur. Divided into eons, eras, periods, and epochs. We are now in the Phanerozoic Eon that started 543 million years ago when animals began to fossilize in large numbers, the Cenozoic Era (started 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs blew out), Quaternary Period (roughly 2 million years ago, when pre-humans appeared), Holocene Epoch (10,000 years ago, when the last Ice Age ended).
Industry:Biology
The fusion of growing metropolitan areas into a megalopolis. An intermediate stage in the development of what Lewis Mumford referred to as necropolis, an example of which is tenemented Rome around the time that the Western Empire fell. Necropolis is the final stage in decadence, bureaucratic alienation, hatred of life, and urban implosion.
Industry:Biology
A hazard because wells left on vacated lands can channel water contaminated by pesticides and fertilizer straight down into the water table. Some states in the U. S. Offer incentives for sealing off these unused wells.
Industry:Biology
How living things change what they do or what they are to survive in a particular environment. In this the organism is not a passive recipient of external circumstances; the relationship is interactive. See Evolution.
Industry:Biology
The amount of water held in a given body divided by the amount that flows into and out of it. (The oceans' residence time is roughly 40,000 years. By contrast, the average turnover time of a stream is about two weeks. )
Industry:Biology
The wearing away of rock surfaces by small particles moved by air or water. Abrasiveness also seems to be the one quality currently shared by most political appointees and prominent heads of state. See Ontogenetic Crippling.
Industry:Biology
A substance with a pH less than 7 due to prevalent hydrogen ions. Acids tend to be sour and corrosive. The human stomach contains hydrochloric acid with a pH of 1; battery acid is stronger, but not by much. Contrast with Basic.
Industry:Biology
The culminating stage of plant succession in a given ecosystem. Climax communities tend toward maturity because of having attained harmony with their surroundings through years of experimentation and adaptation. See Succession.
Industry:Biology
Soil rich in calcium carbonate (calcite) deposited by weathering of calcareous rocks and shells. Chalk, limestone, marl, magnesium, and phosphates are often found in it, making it fertile, if dry or thin. Often seen in deserts.
Industry:Biology
