saltation

Noun

saltation (countable and uncountable, plural saltations)

1. A leap, jump or dance.
   • still keeping time to the music like Harlequin in a pantomime, he thrust a letter into our hero′s hand, and continued his saltation without pause or intermission.1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London...
2. The act of jumping, or hopping, using all legs simultaneously (although the contribution to motion is typically made chiefly by the hind legs).
3. Beating or palpitation.
   • the saltation of the great artery
4. A sudden change from one generation to the next; a mutation.
   • Indeed we have always thought that Mr. Darwin has unnecessarily hampered himself by adhering so strictly to his favourite “Natura non facit saltum.” We greatly suspect that nature does make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the...1871, Thomas Henry Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, page 312
5. Any abrupt transition.
   • Thus, a tap that precedes the final one by a tenth of a second will likely appear to be midway between the contactors, whereas a tap preceding the final one by only 20 ms will appear to be virtually superimposed on it. Because the overall experience is of a stimulus jumping from place to place...2002, Mark Hollins, “14: Touch and Haptics”, in Steven Yantis, editor, Stevens′ Handbook of Experimental Psychology, Sensation and Perception, page 602
6. (fluid mechanics) The transport of loose particles by a fluid (such as wind or flowing water).
   • Of extreme importance in the saltation phenomenon is the vertical distribution of particles, as well as total flux, as functions of the wind speed. The formations of all scales of bed formations, from centimeter-size ripples to kilometer-size dunes, are all due to the saltation process.1987, Ronald Greeley, James D. Iversen, Wind as a Geological Process: On Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan, page 98
   • Saltation rapidly becomes the dominant type of motion as the flow intensity increases further, and at still higher flow intensities suspension begins to dominate. […] There is also an important difference between the movement of particles by saltation, in air and in water.2004, Basil Gomez, Mobile Bed, entry in Andrew Goudie (editor), Encyclopedia of Geomorphology, Volume 2, page 685