Talk:egressive

Notes on the geological usage of ingressive and egressive as adjectives.

Geologists rarely use these terms in reference to a currently existing landform, because the inflow and outflow points are usually obvious. One sees, for example, the streams that fill a lake and the stream that flows out of it. When dealing with an ancient feature however, there may well be difficulty in determining "what went where". Ancient features typically show only partial exposure at the surface, and the investigator must use subtle clues like ripple marks to follow the flow direction. This is when he will use the terms in question, writing that, (for example), the ingressive stream was at the eastern end of the feature and the egressive stream flowed to the southwest. One does not simply stand on a feature and say "this is the ingress", using the root word as a noun - it's always used in adjective form as the direction descriptor for a noun. Possibly this can be considered a form of jargon, but that is our usage. -- Pinkfud 21:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)