monocline

monocline — noun

1. a fold in the earth's crust where all the rock layers slant the same way at roug

1.nounC2
Definition

a fold in the earth's crust where all the rock layers slant the same way at roughly the same steepness, like a carpet draped over a single step rather than a hill

Example

The Sand Ridge monocline in southern Utah stretches for nearly a hundred miles.

place name + monocline as geographic feature

Dr. Chen showed her students the monocline where every rock layer dipped eastward.

Common collocations
  • monocline structure
  • monocline formation
  • sandstone monocline
  • monocline fold
Synonyms
  • monoclinal fold

    more formal geological term; same meaning but used mainly in academic papers

Common Mistakes

The rock has a monocline.
The rock formation shows a monocline.
a monocline is a large-scale fold structure in rock layers, not a property of a single stone.

Word family

  • monoclinal
    adjectiveC2
  • monoclinally
    adverbC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

A monocline is a fold where rock layers all slope in one direction, like a single ramp. An anticline, by contrast, arches upward like an upside-down U, with layers dipping away from the centre in two directions. A syncline is the opposite — it curves downward like a U or a trough, with layers dipping toward the centre. While anticlines and synclines are symmetrical or near-symmetrical, a monocline is asymmetrical by nature: the layers step down and keep going in one direction. In everyday terms: a monocline is a single step in the landscape, an anticline is a ridge, and a syncline is a valley — though real-world examples are often far more eroded and subtle.

anticlinesynclinemonoclinal fold

Common collocations

Nouns

  • monocline formation
  • monocline structure

Phrases

  • a monocline in the earth's crust
  • the steep face of a monocline

Prepositions

  • monocline in
  • monocline of

Etymology

GreekEnglish

Formed from Greek monos ('single, alone') and klinein ('to lean, slope'). The word was coined in geology to describe a fold where rock layers lean in just one direction, distinguishing it from anticlines and synclines that bend in two opposite directions. First used in English geological writing in the mid-19th century.

First known use

1879

1879, in the meaning defined above