duricrust

American

[door-i-kruhst, dyoor-] / ˈdʊər ɪˌkrʌst, ˈdyʊər- /

noun

a hard crust that forms on or in soil in semiarid climates owing to cementation of soil particles.

duricrust British

/ ˈdjʊərɪˌkrʌst /

noun

another name for caliche

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of duricrust

< Latin dūr ( us ) hard + -i- + crust

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The mole needs friction from the soil to dig itself further, but it hasn't been able to get past the "cement-like duricrust" on Mars, so it just bounces in place.

From Fox News

InSight seems to have been unlucky enough to land in a place where the soil is compacted into a harder material called a duricrust, says Matthew Golombek, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

From Nature

The duricrust is both harder and possibly thicker than expected.

From Nature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023