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Well, now I've got backshore, to go with all those foreshores I've been coming across. Still don't have a clear picture in my mind, being about 650 miles from the nearest coast, but that's ok.
Okay, Bean--for the edificatioin read: amusement of all, I am going to attempt to define your lovely list of oceanography words, which I thank you for posting.
Advect (or advection)--the direction of the current
Bathymetry--the depth of the troughs
Drogue--the pull of the tide going out
Eddy--I KNOW this one!--that little swirl
Fetch--no clue
Seiche--no clue
Sill--no clue--crest of a wave?
Swell--the water rising and falling
Thermocline--temperature variance
Turbid (or turbidity)--the movement of the waves
Vorticity--um--a circling current
Doldrums--near-flat water
Fjord--those things in Norway
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Seiche
We useta have these in Chicago when I was just a wee sprout. It's a small lake sized (not that Lake Michigan is a small lake) tsunami sort of thang, cept I don't think it was caused by seismic disturbances.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Seiche
We still have 'em, Faladage. I've seen one about 5' one morning fishing with my brother. I heard there was a "wicked good" one about 20' tall sometime in the 50's. They are caused by a tight and fast moving High-meets-Low pressure system boundry that travels parallel to the shore line. The resulting reflecting wave generally dissipates, but that depends on how different the two systems were.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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member
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member
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Fetch--no clue
_____________
a fetch is a bit complicated to explain, but it's basically one side of a beat.
If you're going upwind in a yacht/sailing dinghy then you have to beat, which means going at roughly a 45 degree angle to either side of the wind as a boat with sails cannot go directly into the wind. This point of sail is as close to the wind as you can get and is called being 'close-hauled'. With me so far??
A beat is only a beat if you have to use both sides of the angle - ie zig-zagging (tacking) towards the wind to get from A to B.
If you can get from point A to point B without having to tack - that is staying on the same close-hauled course the entire way then you are fetching that point and are said to be on a fetch.
Once you are no longer close-hauled then you're not fetching any more, but veering towards a tight reach (some other time!)
Clear as mud - right??
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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Yeahbut, Keiva, berm is clearly defined as a geographical feature of the shore. Birds aren't included as one of the definitions, so you at least can't say a bird is a berm--not that you were getting at that, but thought I'd throw it in!
If a berm's at the shore and caused by the ocean, then it belongs on the list the same way tide pools (that come and go and don't even have the staying power of berms) could be included. It shore sounded to me as though you were trying to say a berm ain't at the shore, though it clearly is according to the definition provided.
You wrote:
You wouldn't put "bird" in a list of shore-words, even though of course some types of birds do make the shore their habitat. So too the six definitions of "berm": most (though not all) are unconnected with the shore.
Sure, most aren't connected, but one of those rascally definitions is intimately connected with the ocean--owes its very existence to the ocean.
It's the ocean causing said berms that makes me think Helen's entry is a.o.k.
I'll add:
The Outer Banks, NC
...the ocean is gobbling them up with the help of hurricanes!
Beach regards,
Wordwind
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Carpal Tunnel
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this one i know
Turbid (or turbidity) -- clarity of the water..
(ie, the normaly clear cool blue water of the tropical lagoon, was made turbid by the mud slides..
(forgetting the spelling of (lhora?)-- our geology thread word..)
Turbity is important-- it effects how deep sunlight can penitrate the water.. colder water, in general, is more turbid than warm water.(dark, opaque northern seas, clear, light tropical ones)
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Carpal Tunnel
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and here one we have done before
a bore.. (a tidal bore)
rip tide
undertow i don't remember seeing it..
and little neck bay is home to a rare shore effect
mud volcanos.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In the ocean near Montezuma, Costa Rica, I swam in waters that had a curious bubbly phenomenom, much like swimming in warm champagne. It made me giggle. Is there a name for this? Ok, then, an explanation?
Could it have something to do with volcanic activity? Waaaah. I want to go back!
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Carpal Tunnel
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It shore sounded to me as though you were trying to say a berm ain't at the shore
Nice pun! If I were saying that, I'd be clearly wrong.
I'm jest sayin' that a berm "ain't necessarily at the shore" -- in fact, most berms aren't there. "Berms", under all but one of AHD's definitions, can be away from shore. (As you note in contrast, a tide pool is, of course, always by definition on the shore.)
To "shore up" our mutual wordplay, here are some "shore" words, new to me, that I stumbled upon. The "shore" is apparently divided into backshore and nearshore:
--backshore: The area of shore lying between the average high-tide mark and the vegetation, affected by waves only during severe storms.
--nearshore: The region of land extending from the backshore to the beginning of the offshore zone.
But it gets even more confusing. Since "nearshore" extends to the start of the "offshore zone", it seems to includes some land that is always submerged. That is, "nearshore" does not end at the water's edge:
--offshore (noun): The ... submerged land extending seaward from beyond the region where breakers form to the edge of the continental shelf.
--breaker zone:: The nearshore zone between the outermost breakers and the area of the wave uprush. Also called surf zone.
[all definitions per bartleby; emphases added]
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Curioser and curiouser. Berm seems to be one of those words differently defined (in this respect) in different dictionaries. AHD (which mav quoted above) includes one shore-related definition. But contrast Merriam Webster on-line:
berm: a narrow shelf, path, or ledge typically at the top or bottom of a slope; also : a mound or wall of earth
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