English▸ noun [mass noun] Geology the sideways and upwards movement of the edge of a crustal plate over the margin of an adjacent plate:
movement of the ophiolite so far south before obduction is unlikely.
– ORIGIN late 16th century (in obsolete sense ‘the action of covering or enveloping’): from Latin obduct- ‘covered over’, from the verb obducere, from ob- ‘against, towards’ + ducere ‘to lead’. The current sense dates from the 1970s.