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body-marking

(Encyclopedia)body-marking, painting, tattooing, or scarification (cutting or burning) of the body for ritual, esthetic, medicinal, magic, or religious purposes. Evidence from prehistoric burials, rock carvings, an...

seafloor spreading

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Schematic model of the oceanic crust, showing seafloor spreading seafloor spreading, theory of lithospheric evolution that holds that the ocean floors are spreading outward from vast underwate...

fossil

(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...

mountain

(Encyclopedia)mountain, high land mass projecting conspicuously above its surroundings and usually of limited width at its summit. Although isolated mountains are not unusual, mountains commonly form ranges, compri...

octopus

(Encyclopedia)octopus, cephalopod mollusk having no shell, eight muscular arms or tentacles, a pouch-shaped body, and two large, highly developed eyes. The prey (crabs, lobsters, and other shellfish) is seized by t...

mica

(Encyclopedia)mica mīˈkə [key], general term for a large group of minerals, hydrous silicates of aluminum and potassium, often containing magnesium, ferrous iron, ferric iron, sodium, and lithium and more rarely...

Atlas Mountains

(Encyclopedia)Atlas Mountains, system of ranges and plateaus in NW Africa, extending c.1,500 mi (2,410 km) from SW Morocco, through N Algeria, to N Tunisia; Jebel Toubkal (13,671 ft/4,167 m), in SW Morocco, is the ...

Laval, François Xavier de

(Encyclopedia)Laval, François Xavier de fräNswäˈ zävyāˈ də lävälˈ [key], 1623–1708, French prelate in Canada, first bishop of Quebec. Of noble family (his family name in full was Laval-Montmorency), he...

Madonna

(Encyclopedia)Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone) mədŏnˈə, chĭkōˈnē [key], 1958–, American p...

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Saint-Gaudens, Augustus sānt-gôdˈənz [key], 1848–1907, American sculptor, b. Dublin, Ireland. His family immigrated to New York when he was an infant. An apprentice in cameo cutting at 13, he ga...