Syncline definition

sĭnklīn
A fold in rocks in which the rock layers dip inward from both sides toward a central line.
noun
2
0
(geol.) A down fold in stratified rocks from whose central axis the beds rise upward and outward in opposite directions.
noun
0
0
A fold of rock layers that slope upward on both sides of a common low point. Synclines form when rocks are compressed by plate-tectonic forces. They can be as small as the side of a cliff or as large as an entire valley.
0
0
(geology) A concave-upward fold in rock strata.
noun
0
0
Advertisement

Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
syncline
Plural:
synclines

Origin of syncline

  • Back-formation from synclinal

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • syn- +"Ž -cline

    From Wiktionary

Syncline Sentence Examples

  • Hence the anticline noses out to the north and the syncline to the south.

  • In describing rock-folds special terms have been assigned to certain portions of the fold; thus, the sloping sides of an anticline or syncline are known as the "limbs," "slopes," "flanks" or "members" of the fold; in an anticline, the part X, fig.

  • Taking the Atlantic as our simplest type, we may say that the surface of an ocean basin resembles that of a mighty trough or syncline, buckled up more or less centrally in a medial ridge, which is bounded by two long and deep marginal hollows, in the cores of which still deeper grooves sink to the profoundest depths.

  • The group of heights of South Wales, running on the whole from west to east, marks the outcrops of the Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous strata which lie within a vast syncline of the Silurian rocks.

  • Where they dip away from the axis of movement the structure is termed an anticline or anticlinal fold; where they dip towards the axis, it is a syncline or synclinal fold.

More sentences

Also Mentioned In

Words near syncline in the Dictionary