Zone
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in anatomy, a region of the body formed by imaginary lin lines drawn around it transversely; used specifically used specifically or regions. of the abdominal zones biology, a stripe or belt, as of color, on a plant, a shell, etc. Also a certain stratum of sea water, the depth of the upper and under surfaces of which are generally measured or calculated in fathoms. There are five zones to mark the bathymetric distribution of marine animals. Some of them are named from the distribution of sea plants, which also they mark: The Littoral Zone, between tide marks; the Laminarian Zone, from low water to 15 fathoms; the Carolline Zone, from 15 to 50 fathoms; the Deep-Sea Coral Zone, 50 to 100 fathoms; the Abyssal Zone, beyond 100 fathoms. In geography, one of the five imaginary belts surrounding the earth. They are the North Frigid Zone, between the North Pole and the Arctic Circle; the North Temperate Zone, between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer; the Torrid Zone, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn; the South Temperate Zone, between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle; and the South Frigid Zone, between the Antarctic Circle and the South Pole. In geology, zones are particular beds in the stages or divisions of certain geological formations, as, the primordial zone. In mathematics, the portion of the surface of a sphere included between two parallel planes. Ciliary zone, in anatomy, a term for the appearance which the pigment between the ciliary processes leaves on the hyaloid membrane, like the disk of a flower; also called Corona ciliaris. Isothermal zone, in geography and meteorology, the space between two isothermal lines.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The geographical part of Collier's 1921 entry still stands: the five belts bounded by the tropics and polar circles are taught in the same terms today, though "Torrid Zone" has largely given way to "tropics" and the circles themselves shift slightly as the Earth's axial tilt changes. The marine scheme has not survived. Collier's five bathymetric zones descend from Edward Forbes's mid-19th-century soundings and treat everything past 100 fathoms (about 180 m) as "abyssal"; oceanographers now divide the water column into epipelagic, mesopelagic, bathyal, abyssal and hadal, with the abyssal beginning nearer 4,000 m and the hadal — named for the deep trenches and unknown as a term in 1921 — running past 10,000 m to the floor of the Challenger Deep, which a crewed vessel first reached in 1960.
Written for this edition, 2026.