A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
975 entries
waterpocket
A natural depression in sandstone that collects and holds rainwater — similar to a tinaja but often larger and occurring on slickrock surfaces rather than in canyon bottoms. Waterpockets can be the size of bathtubs or swimming pools, and in the desert they are oases in stone. Capitol Reef National Park was originally called Wayne Wonderland but was renamed for the Waterpocket Fold — a massive geologic formation lined with thousands of these basins.
Etymology
Compound of “water” + “pocket” — the term traces to Powell-era exploration of the Colorado Plateau in the 1870s; geologist Herbert E. Gregory’s account of an 1872 expedition recorded early use of “Water Pocket Fold” as a place name for the formation, from which the generic term “waterpocket” for the individual basins was likely generalized.