Word.ws English Dictionary

Nevadaplano

US/nəˌvædəˈplænoʊ/

Nevadaplano proper noun: a high-elevation orogenic plateau that once existed during the Tertiary period in what is modern North America’s Great Basin, analogous to today’s high-elevation South American altiplano.

Proper noun

Nevadaplano

  1. A high-elevation orogenic plateau that once existed during the Tertiary period in what is modern North America’s Great Basin, analogous to today’s high-elevation South American altiplano.
    • At the peak of its development, the retroarc side of the Cordillera was divided into five tectonomorphic zones, including from west to east the Luning-Fencemaker thrust belt; the central Nevada (or Eureka) thrust belt; a high-elevation plateau (the “Nevadaplano”); the topographically rugged Sevier...2004, Peter G. DeCelles, “Late Jurassic to Eocene evolution of the Cordilleran thrust belt and foreland basin system, western U.S.A.”, in The American Journal of Science, volume 304, number 2, →DOI...
    • Terming this now-exhumed Late Cretaceous–Eocene hinterland metamorphic belt the Nevadaplano, he estimated that its average elevation probably exceeded 3 km.2009, W. Gary Ernst, “Rise and Fall of the Nevadaplano”, in International Geology Review, volume 51, numbers 7-8, →DOI, page 583

Origin of Nevadaplano

Blend of Nevada + altiplano. Coined by American geoscientist Peter G. DeCelles in a 2004 paper in the American Journal of Science.

Questions about Nevadaplano

What does Nevadaplano mean?
Nevadaplano means a high-elevation orogenic plateau that once existed during the Tertiary period in what is modern North America’s Great Basin, analogous to today’s high-elevation South American altiplano.
What part of speech is Nevadaplano?
Nevadaplano is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Nevadaplano?
Nevadaplano is pronounced /nəˌvædəˈplænoʊ/ (US).

Words near Nevadaplano in the dictionary

  1. Nevada jointfir
  2. Nevada Triangle
  3. nevadaite
  4. Nevadan
  5. Nevadans
  6. Nevadaplano
  7. Nevadian
  8. Nevadians
  9. nevadiid
  10. nevadite
  11. Nevado de Toluca

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Nevadaplano (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Nevadaplano.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nevadaplano. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.