SpruceRoots Magazine - December 2000

Definitions

Siliceous - from silicon, a chemical element found widely in the earth's crust A compound of silicon occuring as quartz or flint and in sandstone and other rocks

ethys - the sea that lay between Laurasia and Gondwanaland, the two supercontinents formed by the first split of the larger supercontinent Pangaea approximately 200 million years ago. The Tethys Sea can be regarded as the predecessor of today's smaller Mediterranean. Also a Titaness and sea goddess, wife of Oceanus and one of the ten satellites of the planet Saturn.

Hexactinellida - a class of sponges in the phylum Porifer, with a skelton composed of six-rayed siliceous spircules.

Paleontologist - person who engages in the systematic study of fossilized flora and fauna

Mollusc - any of a group of animals which have soft bodies and hard shells (eg snails, oysters, mussels) or no shell (eg slugs, octopuses)

Mollusc - any of a group of animals which have soft bodies and hard shells (eg snails, oysters, mussels) or no shell (eg slugs, octopuses)

Annelid - belonging to the phylum Annelida

Bivalves - a shellfish with a hinged double shell

Bryozoan - any member of the phylum bryozoa

Bryozoa - the moss animals, a phylum of minute, mosslike marine and freshwater creatures, with distinct alimentary canals that form permanent colonies and reproduce by budding.

Benthic - any process, material, or organism associated with the benthos.

Benthos - animal or plant life living in direct association with the substrate of a lake, river or sea at any depth of water.

Holocene - the most recent interval of geological time, from approximately 10,000 years ago to the present

Phylum - any of the larger groups into which plants and animals are divided, containing species with the same general form

Porifera - A phylum (major taxonomic division of plants or animals that contain one or more classes) which comprises the sponges. Derived from the New Latin word 'porifer' meaning 'bearing pores'.

Devonian - a period of the Paleozoic era, occuring after the Silurian and before the Mississippian, a period of the Paleozoic era

SpruceRoots Magazine - December 2000