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Crust or layer of hard subsoil encrusted with calcium-carbonate occurring in arid or semiarid regions
Answer for the clue "Crust or layer of hard subsoil encrusted with calcium-carbonate occurring in arid or semiarid regions ", 7 letters:
caliche
Alternative clues for the word caliche
Word definitions for caliche in dictionaries
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. crust or layer of hard subsoil encrusted with calcium-carbonate occurring in arid or semiarid regions [syn: hardpan ] nitrate-bearing rock or gravel of the sodium nitrate deposits of Chile and Peru
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sodium nitrate deposits in Chile and Peru, 1858, from American Spanish, from Spanish caliche "pebble in a brick," from Latin calx "pebble" (see chalk (n.)).
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
caliche \ca*li"che\ (k[.a]*l[=e]"ch[-e]), n. a deposit of sand or clay on the surface containing crystallized salts such as sodium chloride or sodium nitrate; -- used especially of the sodium nitrate deposits of Chile and Peru. --RHUD a stratum of calcium ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 (context mineral English) A crude form of sodium nitrate from South America; used as a fertilizer. 2 A layer of hard clay subsoil or sedimentary rock; hardpan.
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
Caliche may refer to: Caliche , a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate. Caliche slang, a collection of slang words unique to Central American Spanish .
Usage examples of caliche.
I left that coach road on what was almost a sudden impulse when I noticed it was passing through a ridge with lots of slickrock and little deep caliche.
The soil here was typical of a sagebrush flat: loose, light, and with enough fine caliche particles to form a crust.
His friends regarded him with a measure of respect and hatred, beseeching him to put in a good word for them with the Angel of Death, or whoever it was with whom he held counsel, even as they capsized over backward into the adobe and caliche darkness of their own graves.
A mixture of sand and fine brown adobe clays and gray caliche, it had the texture, viscosity, and crippling powers of a tar pit.
Bisti Badlands now, looking into the edge of a wilderness where eons of time had uncovered alternating layers of gray shale, pink sandstone, yellow caliche, and black streaks of coal.
The moonlight reflecting off the pale cement streets and beige lawns turned everything gray-white, the color of caliche rock.
Erosion had carved the tuff wherever bracks in the andesite exposed it, forming the tunnel-bottomed ravines, and also revealing great seams of caliche, trapped between the two layers.
The cross was encrusted in caliche, a hard crust of calcium carbonate.
Ahead of them, to the west, the caliche sloped gently down again, pocked by dry gulches the size of ballparks.