Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) fossil, remains or imprints of plants or animals preserved from prehistoric times by the operation of natural conditions. Fossils are found in sedimentary rock, asphalt deposits, and coal and sometime...

(Encyclopedia) recycling, the process of recovering and reusing waste products—from household use, manufacturing, agriculture, and business—and thereby reducing their burden on the environment. During World War ...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 A. Cross section of the earth, showing its shells B. Detailed cross section of the crust and upper mantle: The lithosphere consists of the hard rock in the crust and upper mantle, lying above t...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Parts of a dome dome, a roof circular or (rarely) elliptical in plan and usually hemispherical in form, placed over a circular, square, oblong, or polygonal space. Domes have been built with a...

(Encyclopedia) Saint Louis lo͞oˈĭs [key], city (1990 pop. 396,685), independent and in no county, E Mo., on the Mississippi River below the mouth of the Missouri; inc. as a city 1822. St. Louis has long been a ma...

(Encyclopedia) barnacle, common name of the sedentary crustacean animals constituting the infraclass Cirripedia. Barnacles are exclusively marine and are quite unlike any other crustacean because of the permanently ...

(Encyclopedia) mine, in warfare, term formerly applied to a system of tunnels dug under an army fortification and ending in a chamber where either explosives were placed to be detonated at a chosen moment or the sup...

(Encyclopedia) solid waste, discarded materials other than fluids. In the United States in 1996, nearly 210 million tons—about 4.3 lb. (2 kg) per person daily (up from 2.7 lb./1.2 kg in 1960)—were collected and ...

(Encyclopedia) surgery, branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and the excision and repair of pathological conditions by means of operative procedures (see also anesthesia; medicin...

(Encyclopedia) Portsmouth. 1 City (1990 pop. 25,925), Rockingham co., SE N.H., a port of entry with a good harbor and a state-owned port terminal at the mouth of the Piscataqua River opposite Kittery, Maine; inc. 16...