Striation
Striation turns up in 2 fields: mining, building. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Striation in mining
A linear scratch or groove gouged into bedrock by the movement of a glacier or fault.
These parallel lines are carved into hard rock surfaces when abrasive debris, like boulders or gravel, is dragged across them under immense pressure. In glacial geology, they indicate the exact direction of past ice flow. In structural geology, similar marks on a fault plane indicate the vector of slip between two blocks of crust.
"The striation on this outcrop clearly shows the ice sheet was moving due south."
Striation in building
A series of shallow, parallel grooves stamped into metal roofing panels.
Small longitudinal ribs or channels rolled into the flat pan of a metal roof panel during manufacturing. These micro-creases stiffen the sheet metal across its width, breaking up the flat surface to hide minor buckling and reduce the visual distortion known as oil-canning.
"We ordered the standing seam with heavy striations because the architect was worried about oil-canning on the south elevation."