Fall lines (Geomorphology)

found: Work cat: Weems, R. E. Newly recognized en echelon fall lines in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge provinces of North Carolina and Virginia, 1998:p. 2 (The terms "fall line" and "fall zone" have been used more or less interchangeably in the past. Each name has merit for different reasons. Therefore, both names are used here, but in specific and different senses. ... Thus, as used here, "fall zones" are short segments of individual stream courses that display abnormally steep gradients, while "fall lines" are groups of "fall zones" that are aligned along curvilinear trends) p. 4 (These seven fall line trends, including "the Fall Line" along the eastern edge of the Piedmont, are equally obvious in their geographic and geomorphic expression. Therefore, these seven trends each should be named as distinct geomorphic features)

found: Glossary of geology, 1987(fall line -- an imaginary line or narrow zone connecting the waterfalls on several adjacent near-parallel rivers, marking the points where these rivers make a sudden descent from an upland to a lowland, as at the edge of a plateau; specif. the Fall Line marking the boundary between the ancient, resistant crystalline rocks of the Piedmont Plateau and the younger, softer sediments of the Atlantic Coastal Plain in the eastern U.S. ... syn: fall zone)

found: The American Heritage dictionary of the English language, 2000(fall line -- 1. A line connecting the waterfalls of nearly parallel rivers that marks a drop in land level. 2. The natural line descent, as for skiing, between two points on a slope)

found: The Columbia encyclopedia, 2000(fall line -- boundary between an upland region and a coastal plain across which rivers from the upland region drop to the plain as falls or rapids. A fall line is formed in an area where the rivers have eroded away the soft rocks of a coastal plain more quickly than the older harder rocks of an upland region. Such erosion follows a crooked line along a coast)

found: McGraw-Hill dictionary of scientific and technical terms, 2003(fall line -- 1. The zone or boundary between resistant rocks of older land and weaker strata of plains. 2. The line indicated by the edge over which a waterway suddenly descends, as in waterfalls)