Yep, Cap'--it's starting to sink in. The order of rock sequences. There are those larger periods of time that subsume other periods in all the geological periods, so that's what I figured out last night--that the periods umbrella'd by another would be commonly referred to among geologists as 'sequences.' Then they would easily refer to any sequence they wanted to as pre- or post-.
There it is: vocabulary all over again. Once you have the vocabulary of a discipline down pat--the vocabulary and sometimes syntax, too--reading within the discipline becomes so much easier. In fact, that is something I'll have to work on with students next year, a 'standard of learning' in Virginia for writing--having kids recognize and learn vocabulary in the specialized areas they have to read and write about.
We'll see whether the Internet professor responds--and I'll also ask my colleague at school to ask her husband.
