Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A type of permafrost consisting primarily of loess and organic material, believed to sequester large amounts of carbon.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Archaic and regional Russian yedoma, backwoods, a place that lacks reindeer, yedoma, of Nenets origin; akin to Nenets yada, on foot (since the Nenets use reindeer to draw sledges and without them go on foot).]

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Examples

  • Systems such as the special type of permafrost called yedoma-so rich in carbon it's estimated to contain 100 times the amount released annually by combustion of fossil fuels.

    Carbon Call 2007

  • Another study earlier this summer in the journal Science found that the amount of carbon trapped in this type of permafrost – called yedoma – is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels.

    Peace, order and good government, eh?: September 2006 Archives 2006

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers 700,000

    KansasCity.com: Front Page 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers 700,000

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 700,000 square miles and is particularly unstable.

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers 700,000

    KansasCity.com: Front Page 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers 700,000

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 700,000 square miles and is particularly unstable.

    USATODAY.com News 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers 700,000

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • The northern Siberian soil, called yedoma, covers 1.8 million square kilometers 700,000

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

Comments

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  • "Erosion after the last hundred centuries has eaten away the top 20 to 30 feet of the former Pleistocene plain, leaving behind only scattered mounds, called yedoma. These humps of the former steppe are the burial mounds of Ice Age animals."

    —Richard Stone, Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant, (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing, 2001), 36

    September 20, 2008