| 释义 |
cuesta|ˈkwɛsta|
[Sp. cuesta slope:—L. costa (see coast n.).]
A gentle slope or inclined plain, esp. one that ends in a steep drop; a hill or ridge with one face steep and the opposite side gently sloping. Orig. local U.S.; adopted in the second sense as a term in Physical Geogr. (see quots.).
1818in Amer. State Papers (For. Relat.) (1834) IV. 298 A high ridge or mountain surrounds them all; and a cuesta..more or less rugged and precipitous. 1854W. L. Herndon Amazon i. 96 The road..ascends a steep and rugged ‘cuesta’. 1896Nat. Geogr. Mag. VII. 294 The plains belong to four great topographic categories, which in the rich Spanish nomenclature of the region may be termed mesas, bolsons, plazas, and cuestas (including bajadas)... Cuestas and bajadas are inclined plains, which can also be classed as declivities. 1899W. M. Davis in Proc. Geol. Assoc. Lond. (1900) XVI. 76 The outer slope is so gentle that its inclination is hardly noticeable. Such an upland may be called a ‘cuesta’. Ibid. 77 Finding no name in use for the forms here considered, I have..advocated the general adoption of the term cuesta... By the same natural extension of the original meaning that makes mesa apply to the whole of a tabular elevation, instead of only to its upper surface, cuesta may be made to apply to the entire body of the unsymmetrical linear elevation that is characteristic of certain denuded coastal plains. 1901Jrnl. School Geogr. Oct. 295 This is just at the cuesta-like escarpment. 1939Geogr. Jrnl. XCIV. 414 The Chiltern Hills are a simple chalk cuesta. 1941C. A. Cotton Landscape Developed by Erosion x. 94 Homoclinal ridges grade into cuestas, which are developed on escarpment-forming strata of very gentle inclination. 1963D. W. & E. E. Humphries tr. Termier's Erosion & Sedimentation iii. 66 It is sometimes difficult to distinguish these cliffs from nonmarine cuestas. 1970R. J. Small Study of Landforms iii. 75 The most important landforms of such scarp-and-vale scenery are, of course, the cuestas themselves. |