Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To burden with too much weight; overload.
- transitive verb To subject to an excessive burden or strain; overtax.
- noun An excessive burden; an overload.
- noun Material overlying a useful mineral deposit.
- noun Sedimentary rock covering older crystalline layers.
- noun Archaeology A sterile stratum overlying a stratum bearing traces of the culture being studied.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Detrital material or rock which has to be removed, as being of no value, in order to get at some valuable substance beneath, which it is intended to mine or quarry: used in reference to quarrying or excavating clay and similar materials.
- noun An excessive load; a burden or load greater than should be carried.
- To load with too great burden or weight; overload; overtask: as, trees overburdened with fruit.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The waste which overlies good stone in a quarry.
- transitive verb To load with too great weight or too much care, etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To
overload orovertax - noun geology The
rock andsubsoil that lies above amineral deposit such as acoal seam . - noun archaeology A
sterile stratum that lies above the stratum being investigated
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb burden with too much work or responsibility
- verb load with excessive weight
- noun the surface soil that must be moved away to get at coal seams and mineral deposits
- noun an excessive burden
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The earth above, what we call overburden, it's shifting, because when you remove part of the earth underneath, pressure has to go somewhere because it's going to drop.
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The "overburden" is placed in an adjacent valley fill while workers use enormous equipment to mine the coal.
Rebecca R. Scott: Almost Heaven or Almost Hell? Fossil Fuels, Paychecks and Nature Rebecca R. Scott 2010
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The "overburden" is placed in an adjacent valley fill while workers use enormous equipment to mine the coal.
Rebecca R. Scott: Almost Heaven or Almost Hell? Fossil Fuels, Paychecks and Nature Rebecca R. Scott 2010
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The "overburden" is placed in an adjacent valley fill while workers use enormous equipment to mine the coal.
Rebecca R. Scott: Almost Heaven or Almost Hell? Fossil Fuels, Paychecks and Nature Rebecca R. Scott 2010
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To the industry, these diverse and ecologically significant forests and wetlands are referred to as overburden, the forest to be stripped and the wetlands dredged and replaced by mines and tailings ponds so vast they can be seen from outer space.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2011
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Work on the Company's existing long-term overburden removal contract with Canadian Natural could be temporarily affected by a fire that damaged the Horizon Mine's upgrader, however, the customer's initial assessment appears to suggests that the impact on NAEP is expected to be minimal.
unknown title 2011
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The decline in activity at Shell was partially offset by increased activity under the Company's long-term overburden contract with Canadian Natural and increased reclamation and overburden activity at both Syncrude and Suncor.
unknown title 2011
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Essentially, what you see is the adjustments there in backlog is mainly related to our long-term overburden projects.
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Essentially, what you see is the adjustments there in backlog is mainly related to our long-term overburden projects.
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Entire Appalachian chains of peaks are being leveled and creeks smothered with "overburden" - all for Great music is also on the agenda, both sanctioned by E-LAW and at venues around Eugene.
CounterPunch 2009
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