An open book is a rock formation that looks just like its name. This specialized term is one of hundreds collected and explained in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. Such a rock formation is also called a dihedral. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Open Book Rock Formation”
Here’s a term I really like from Home Ground, Language for an American Landscape.
It’s a collection of 800 terms that you don’t hear that often or see in standard dictionaries, but they’re terms that people use to describe features of landscape, and it’s open book.
Open book.
Yeah.
This isn’t how you take a test. It’s something else.
No, it’s a rock formation that’s got two planes of rock at more than a 90-degree angle.
It’s sometimes called a dihedral, and mountain climbers will talk about that.
I see.
It’s an open book.
And if you Google that, open book and rocks or open book and cliffs, you can see they look like open books.
Because it’s easy to scale those.
Boy, you could go right up those, right?
Well, speak for yourself, Grant.
I can’t.
No, one could were one so skilled and inclined.
I don’t know.
Maybe.
But we would like it because it’s an open book, right?
We would be drawn to it.
