stillstand

See also: Stillstand

English

Etymology

still +‎ stand

Noun

stillstand (plural stillstands)

1. (geology) A period of time during which the terminus of a glacier remains stationary.
   • 2020 January 28, Kelly A. Hogan, Martin Jakobsson, Larry Mayer, Brendan T. Reilly, Anne E. Jennings, Joseph S Stoner, Tove Nielsen, Katrine J. Andresen, Egon Nørmark, Katrien A. Heirman, Elina Kamla, Kevin Jerram, Christian Stranne, Alan Mix, “Glacial sedimentation, fluxes and erosion rates associated with ice retreat in Petermann Fjord and Nares Strait, north-west Greenland”, in The Cryosphere‎^[1], volume 14, number 1, European Geosciences Union, →DOI, archived from the original on 2024-04-10, pages 261-286:

     A useful exercise may be to calculate the basin-wide deglacial erosion rate for the Jakobshavn catchment area using the volume of glacimarine sediments deposited in front of the fjord-mouth sill (29.2 km3) during an 800 year stillstand (Hogan et al., 2012) and a glacial catchment area derived using the same procedures in this study (33 504 km2; Fig. S1b).

   • 2020 September 25, E. F. Eidam, D. A. Sutherland, D Duncan, C. Kienholz, J. M. Amundson, R. J. Motyka, “Morainal Bank Evolution and Impact on Terminus Dynamics During a Tidewater Glacier Stillstand”, in Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface‎^[2], volume 125, number 11, American Geophysical Union, →DOI, archived from the original on 2024-05-26, page e2019JF005359:

     Repeated bathymetric measurements adjacent to the LeConte glacier terminus offer a rare view into the evolution of a morainal bank on interannual time scales during a stillstand, starting immediately after a rapid glacier retreat.

2. (geology) A period of geologic time during which eustatic sea level stays apparently constant, relative to adjacent periods of geologic time, neither characterized by transgression, nor regression.
   • 1977, Peter R. Vail, Robert M. Jr. Mitchum, Steve Thompson, III, “Seismic Stratigraphy and Global Changes of Sea Level, Part 3: Relative Changes of Sea Level from Coastal Onlap” (chapter 5), in Charles E. Payton, editor, Seismic Stratigraphy: Applications to Hydrocarbon Exploration (AAPG Memoirs)‎^[3], volume 26, Tulsa, Oklahoma: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, →DOI, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-06-16, Application of Seismic Reflection Configuration to Stratigraphic Interpretation (section 2), page 68:

     A relative stillstand of sea level is an apparently constant position of sea level with respect to the underlying initial surface of deposition, and is indicated by coastal toplap. It may result if both sea level and the underlying initial surface of deposition actually remain stationary, or if both rise or fall at the same rate.

   • 1978, A. Hallam, “Eustatic cycles in the Jurassic”, in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology‎^[4], volume 23, Amsterdam: Elsevier, →DOI, archived from the original on 2024-04-11, pages 1-32:

     More generally, regressive sedimentary episodes often correlate with widespread stratigraphic gaps implying erosion or non-deposition. Such facts imply a sea-level fall rather than a stillstand combined with sedimentary infill. Without such periodic falls it is difficult to understand why the successive phases of transgression did not extend much further than areal plots of marine deposits indicate.

   • 2021 December, Paulo Henrique Cetto, Alex Cardoso Bastos, Marco Ianirruberto, “Morphological evidences of eustatic events in the last 14,000 years in a far-field site, East-Southeast Brazilian continental shelf”, in Marine Geology‎^[5], volume 442, number 106659, Elsevier, →DOI, archived from the original on 2024-05-19, page 14:

     The results show that shelf morphology in a far-field site, such as a South Atlantic continental margin, exhibits morphological evidences indicating a stillstand during YD, characterized by the configuration of distinct coastal systems (lagoons, estuaries, barrier islands and potential fringing reefs), followed by a rapid sea-level rise that drowned and preserved the morphology of these coastal features.

3. (obsolete) A standstill.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     As with the tide, swell'd up unto its height ,
     That makes a still-stand, running neither way

Verb

stillstand (third-person singular simple present stillstands, present participle stillstanding, simple past and past participle stillstanded)

1. (geology) To cease in either glacial advance or retreat.
   • 2005 October 25, Jeremy Everest, P. Kubik, “The deglaciation of eastern Scotland: cosmogenic ¹⁰Be evidence for a Lateglacial stillstand”, in Journal of Quaternary Science‎^[6], volume 2, number 1, Wiley, →DOI, archived from the original on 2021-09-06, pages 95-104:

     It is tempting in these circumstances to look for the 'smoking gun'-a mechanism whereby glaciers from both the local Cairngorm ice cap, and the much larger Scottish Ice Sheet could stillstand, or even readvance for a period of 1 kyr, during deglaciation.

   • 2016 April, Pierre Dietrich, Jean-François Ghienne, Alexandre Normandeau, Patrick Lajeunesse, “Proglacial deltaic landforms and stratigraphic architecture as a proxy for reconstructing past ice-sheet margin positions”, in EGU Geophysical Research Abstracts‎^[7], volume 18, EGU General Assembly 2016, 17-22 April, 2016, Vienna Austria: European Geosciences Union, EPSC2016-2851, archived from the original on 2023-09-25:

     The base of the stratigraphic successions consists of outwash fan deposits emplaced in the early deglaciation when ice margin stillstanded immediately beyond the depositional area.

   • 2017 December 5, Pierre Dietrich, Jean-François Ghienne, Alexandre Normandeau, Patrick Lajeunesse, “Reconstructing ice-margin retreat using delta morphostratigraphy”, in Scientific Reports‎^[8], volume 7, number 16936, Nature Portfolio, →DOI, archived from the original on 2024-05-16:

     Ice-contact depositional systems formed when the LIS was stillstanding along the Québec North Shore.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “stillstand”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• stand still, standstill