stratosphere

noun

Etymology: From French stratosphère, a word coined by its discoverer, meteorologist Léon Teisserenc de Bort. From strato- + -sphere.

1. The region of the uppermost atmosphere where the temperature increases along with the altitude due to the absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation by ozone.

   “Variation in height of the stratosphere (isothermal layer).”

   “The mesosphere may be described as the earth's intermediate or middle atmosphere, which separates the thermosphere above from the ozonosphere (or stratosphere) below, both of which are responsible for absorption of most of the ultraviolet part of the solar radiation and preventing it from reaching the earth's surface.”

2. Collectively, those layers of the Earth’s crust which primarily comprise stratified deposits.

   “So great is the part played by stratified deposits in the structure of the earth’s crust that we might be tempted to speak of the stratosphere of the earth in contradistinction to the scoriosphere of the moon.”

   “The stratosphere, or younger sedimentary envelope has been formed almost entirely at the expense of the Sal envelope.”