Uvala

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A geological feature found in limestone terrains, representing a larger basin-like depression that occurs through the coalescence of smaller sinkholes and other hollows
2. This term identifies a significant landform in karst areas, created by the erosion of limestone and characterized by a distinct basin shape due to the joining of multiple depressions
3. A landform typically occurring in karst landscapes, formed through the merging of various smaller depressions and sinkholes into a larger, basin-like structure

Etymology: Uvala comes from the Croatian and Slovene word for a bowl or hollow, "uvala", which in those languages also means a bay or cove on the coast. That sense makes sense once you picture the landform: geologists borrowed the term from the Dinaric karst of the western Balkans, where the Adriatic coast and its inland limestone basins are shaped by the same processes. Because the Dinaric Alps gave karst science so many of its technical terms, names like this one traveled from local speech into international geology more or less intact. The coastal and inland meanings are closely linked. A uvala is essentially a sinkhole that has grown by swallowing its neighbours, so the basin that results is wider and shallower than a single doline. Where the land drops toward the sea, the flooded or partly flooded version looks like a little bay, which is why the same word serves both a seaside inlet and a dry hollow inland.