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Glite Dictionary
🚫 Breaking rules 🌱 Beyond parent traits 🌊 Rising sea levels
transgressive

transgressive

9.9
When sea levels rise, sea sand and mud cover older land
  • adjective
  • /trænˈɡrɛsɪv/
  • Specialized
translation icon : transgresional
  • The transgressive layers of sediment reveal ancient marine environments.

Examples

  • The transgressive layers in the rock record indicate a period of rising sea levels.

  • A transgressive event can result in marine fossils being found far inland.

  • Scientists studied the transgressive sequence to understand ancient climate changes.

  • Geologists study transgressive deposits to understand past climate changes.

  • The transgressive layers in the rock record indicate a period of rising sea levels.

  • Geologists study the transgressive sediments to uncover evidence of past marine environments.

  • A transgressive event can be identified by marine deposits on previously dry land.

Synonyms

transgressional
vstransgressive
  • Specialized
9.9

About a time when the sea moves over land and leaves layers of rock

is the same idea phrased as a descriptive event of rising seas depositing sediments

Surface Forms

transgressive positive

Morphology

transgressive = transgress (opaque) = transgress + ive

Although built from the same morphemes, the geological sense (relating to marine transgression and sedimentation) is a specialized usage that is not predictable from the everyday meaning 'to break rules'.

Etymology

Transgressive in geology uses trans- 'across' and -gress 'to go', like the sea 'going across' the land. That's why a transgressive event is when rising water lays marine layers over older land.