What does encrinal mean?
Encrinal is a specialized geological adjective describing material — most often limestone — that is composed of or richly derived from the remains of crinoids, the marine animals commonly known as sea lilies. Because crinoids possess skeletons of numerous small calcareous plates that readily break apart after death, vast accumulations of these fragments have built up on ancient sea floors, cementing over millions of years into distinctive encrinal rocks. Such limestones are especially widespread in strata of Paleozoic age, notably the Mississippian period, when crinoids were extraordinarily abundant, and they are prized by paleontologists as a record of those long-vanished shallow-sea ecosystems. The word is closely synonymous with the more common term crinoidal, and both appear mainly in technical descriptions of rock composition, thin-section analysis, and stratigraphy. Outside earth-science literature encrinal is rarely met with, but within it, calling a bed encrinal signals at once both the rock's composition and the ancient seafloor community that produced it.
adjectiveOf, relating to, or composed of crinoids (sea lilies); especially said of limestone or other sedimentary rock formed largely of crinoid fragments.
- Composed largely of crinoid remains, as certain limestones and other sedimentary deposits.
- Relating to or characteristic of crinoids.
"The quarry exposed thick beds of encrinal limestone studded with fossilized sea-lily stems."
"The Mississippian strata are famous for their encrinal beds, packed with disarticulated sea-lily plates."
"Under the microscope, the encrinal grainstone revealed a mosaic of broken crinoid ossicles."
Some limestones are essentially cemeteries of sea lilies that flourished hundreds of millions of years ago — geologists call them encrinal.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of encrinal
Encrinal derives from the noun crinoid, which itself comes from the Greek krinon, meaning 'lily', a name given to the sea lilies whose flower-like appearance suggested the comparison; the adjective is formed with the prefix en- and the suffix -al. It entered scientific English during the nineteenth century, when geologists classifying fossiliferous limestones needed a compact way to describe rocks dominated by crinoidal debris. Its closest relatives are crinoid and crinoidal, all tracing back to that same Greek root for 'lily'.
How encrinal is actually used
Encrinal is a technical term confined chiefly to geology and paleontology; it appears almost exclusively in scientific writing rather than everyday speech, and 'crinoidal' is the more frequently encountered synonym.
Easily confused with encrinal
A crinoid is the marine animal itself (a sea lily), while encrinal is the adjective describing rock or material made of or related to crinoids.