From Steno's Stratigraphy to Stenography to Steganography to Stegasaurus

     Good old Nicolas Steno (1638-1686), a Dane who was beatified  by the Catholic Church over 300 years after his death, first stated three fairly straightforward tenets of stratigraphy: 

      (1) The Law of Superposition: in most circumstances, barring any subsequent overturning of layers, the oldest sedimentary rocks are on the bottom and the youngest are on the top:

      (2) The Principle of Original Horizontality: most sequences are deposited in a horizontal or nearly horizontal plane,

     and (3) The Principle of Lateral Continuity: Material forming any layer were continuous over the surface of the Earth unless some other solid bodies stood in the way:

     I thought perhaps Steno's name was somehow related to stenography:

       and this interesting graphic showing beginning consonants on the left hand, ending consonants on the right, and vowels in the thumb positions:

     ..."I keep thinking of Jim Robbins! It's ridiculous. He's only a male stenographer. . ." But, Steno has no connection here.

      Or perhaps a connection to steganography, from the Greek "stegein," to cover:

which brought me to Stegosaurus or covered lizard:

     which brought me back to hiding or covering messages in landscapes where the oldest rocks are generally on the bottom, the layers are deposited horizontally, and the material forming over the layers of the earth were continuous unless some solid body stood in the way:

     I guess that about covers it.


Undercover,
Steph (aka Word Woman)

Four hour window in Boulder on Monday (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)