valley fill
n.— «Mountaintop removal is just what the name suggests. Peaks are cleared of trees. Giant steam shovels then scrape away the topsoil. The rock beneath is blasted away until the coal is exposed. Some blasts have lopped as much as 800 feet off a mountain, environmental attorney Lovett says. He calls the method “strip mining on steroids.” The rock and soil debris is pushed into hollows in what the industry calls “valley fills.”» —“Mining battle marked by peaks and valleys” by Laura Parker in Bob White, West Virginia USA Today Apr. 18, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Eric from Harrisonburg, Virginia, wants to know: What’s the origin of footloose and fancy-free, which describes someone unencumbered by obligations or worries? This is part of a complete episode.
Related
Ribbon fall. Gallery forest. You won’t find terms like these in most dictionaries, but they and hundreds like them are discussed by famous writers in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. The book is an intriguing collection...