Term | Definition |
estuary | a semi-enclosed area at the mouth of a river where fresh water and seawater meet and mix |
ice age | a period in the earth's history when the average temperature of the earth was significantly cooler than it is now |
glaciers | moving sheets of ice that flow across land |
uniformitarians | scientists who believe that there were many ice ages in the earth's history and each of them took a long time to occur |
catastrophists | scientists who believe that there was one major ice age in the history of the earth and it was brought on by the worldwide Flood of Noah's time |
drowned river valleys | the most common of the five types of estuaries (sometimes called coastal plain estuaries) |
bar-built estuary | another type of estuary developed because of a sand bar or barrier island |
fjord | a type of estuary that is the result of glaciers cutting deeply into the earth as they moved near the coast |
river delta | a fan-shaped estuary where a river reaches the sea and deposits sediment along the coast |
tectonic estuary | a type of estuary formed as the result of motion in the earth's crust |
salt wedge | a diagonal delineation of salinities that happen where seawater & fresh water meet |
euryhaline | species that can tolerate a wide range of salinities |
stenohaline | species that can tolerate a narrow range of salinities |
brackish | water that is less salty than seawater but saltier than fresh water |
wetlands | estuarine areas of high elevations that are periodically covered with water |
salt marshes | temperate wetlands in temperate areas of the world and are wet, grassy areas |
mangrove forests | wetlands that you will find in tropical climates |
mudflats | wide expanses of an estuary that are exposed during low tide |