In the natural world, the sources for this line of thinking are numerous. To name a few in earth science, such interactions can be found in plate tectonics where whole continents collide, in geology where magma intrudes into, or lava or sedimentary layers overlie another formation, and in glaciology where ice floes collide, icebergs smash through pack fields, glaciers and ice sheets split at crevasse lines, and grind against rock at their sides and bottoms.

It is hoped that the implications not stop there, at the level of direct reference. The metaphorical terranes that can be explored include most prominently the interactions of humanity with itself, and with the natural world, but can also include more cerebral concepts such as the collision of ideas, cultures and preconceptions.

The use of an invented compound word in ancient Greek has another reference. Early naturalists in the several centuries preceding ours (such as Humboldt, Linneus, etc.) were usually classically trained, and resorted to such training when attempting to make sense of the unfamiliar. An obvious example is the word ‘dinosaur’, which means simply ‘terrible lizard’. Thus, the use of such a word here refers not just to the expressed topic, but also to a brave culture of exploration both physical and intellectual, that had at its core a deep seated desire to understand the natural world in the deepest way possible, and for that understanding’s own sake. This has never been more crucial than at the current moment, when lack of such comprehension coupled with human self-centeredness threatens to terminally engulf in short order the biological world both human and natural.