Coppermine River Stream, Northwest Territories and Nunavut terri¬ tory, Canada. Rising in the Barren Grounds, a subarctic prairie region, it flows north for 525 mi (845 km) into Coronation Gulf, an arm of the Arc¬ tic Ocean, near the Inuit settlement of Kugluktuk (formerly Coppermine). Unnavigable because of numerous rapids and a short ice-free season, it is a noted Arctic char fishing stream.
Coppola Vko-po-lsV, Francis Ford (b. April 7, 1939, Detroit, Mich., U.S.) U.S. film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked under Roger Corman before achieving his first success with the low-budget but stylish You’re a Big Boy Now (1967). He wrote or cowrote screenplays for several films, including Patton (1970, Academy Award). He won acclaim for writing and directing the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972, Academy Awards for best picture and screenplay). His other films include The Conversation (1974), The Godfather, Part II (1974, Academy Awards for best director, picture, and screenplay). Apocalypse Now (1979), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), The Godfather, Part III (1990), and The Rain¬ maker (1997).
coprocessor Additional processor used in some personal computers to perform specialized tasks such as extensive arithmetic calculations or processing of graphical displays. The coprocessor is often designed to do such tasks more efficiently than the main processor, resulting in far greater speeds for the computer as a whole.
Coptic Orthodox Church Principal Christian church in Egypt. Until the 19th century it was called simply the Egyptian Church. It agrees doc- trinally with Eastern Orthodoxy except that it holds that Jesus has a purely divine nature and never became human, a belief the Council of Chalce- don rejected (see Monophysite heresy) in ad 451. After the Arab conquest (7th century), service books were written with Coptic and Arabic in par¬ allel texts. Church government is democratic, and the patriarch, who resides in Cairo, is elected. There are congregations outside Egypt, espe¬ cially in Australia and the U.S., and the church is in communion with the Ethiopian, Armenian, and Syrian Jacobite churches.
copulation See sexual intercourse
copyhold In English law, a form of landholding defined as a “holding at the will of the lord according to the custom of the manor.” Its origin is found in the occupation by villeins, or nonfreemen, of portions of land belonging to the manor of the feudal lord. It was occupation at the plea¬ sure of the lord, but in time it grew into an occupation by right, called villenagium, which was recognized first by custom and then by law. In 1926 all copyhold land became freehold land, though lords of manors retained mineral and sporting rights.
copyright Exclusive right to reproduce, publish, or sell an original work of authorship. It protects from unauthorized copying any published or unpublished work that is fixed in a tangible medium (including a book or manuscript, musical score or recording, script or dramatic production, painting or sculpture, or blueprint or building). It does not protect mat-
Crystalline copper from Michigan
COURTESY OF TED BOENTE COLLECTION; PHOTOGRAPH, JOHN H. GERARD
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
464 I coquina ► Cordoba
ters such as an idea, process, or system. Protection in the U.S. now extends for the life of the creator plus 70 years after his or her death. Works made for hire are now protected for a maximum of 95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from the date of the creation of the work. In 1988 the U.S. joined the Bern Convention, an agreement that governs international copyright. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, adopted in the U.S. in 1998, expanded owners’ control over digital forms of their creations and penalized persons who sought to evade technological shields (such as encryption) for copyrighted material. See also intellectual prop¬ erty; patent; trademark.
coquina \ko-'ke-n3\ Limestone formed almost entirely of sorted and cemented fossil debris, most commonly coarse shells and shell fragments. Microcoquinas are similar sedimentary rocks composed of finer material. Common among microcoquinas are those formed from the remains of crinoids (marine invertebrates, such as sea lilies, that have limy disks and a limy internal skeleton). A distinction is made between a coquina, which is a rock formed from debris, and coquinoid limestone, which is com¬ posed of coarse shelly materials with a fine-grained matrix.
coquina (clam) \ko-'ke-no\ Any clam of the genus Donax, inhabiting sandy beaches worldwide. Coquinas are very active; they migrate up and down beaches with the tide and can reburrow between waves. They have short siphons and feed on suspended plant material and detritus. A typi¬ cal species, D. variabilis, measures about 0.4-1 in. (10-25 mm) in length. Its shell is wedge-shaped and varies from white, yellow, and pink to blue and mauve.
coral Any of about 2,300 species of marine cnidarians in the class Antho- zoa that are characterized by stone¬ like, horny, or leathery skeletons (external or internal). The skeletons of these animals are also called coral.
Corals are found in warm seas worldwide. The body is of the polyp type. Soft, homy, and blue corals are colonial in habit (i.e., they live in large groups). Stony corals, the most familiar and widely distributed forms, are both colonial and solitary.
Atolls and coral reefs, which are composed of stony coral, grow at an average rate of 0.2-1.1 in. (0.5-2.8 cm) per year. See also sea fan.
coral reef Ridge or hummock formed in shallow ocean areas from the external skeletons of corals. The skeleton consists of calcium carbon¬ ate (CaC0 3 ), or limestone. A coral reef may grow into a permanent coral island, or it may take one of four principal forms. Fringing reefs consist of a flat reef area around a nonreef island. Barrier reefs may lie a mile or more offshore, separated from the landmass by a lagoon or channel. Atolls are circular reefs without a central landmass. Patch reefs have irregular tablelike or pinnacle features. Smaller patches occur inside atoll lagoons; larger patches occur as isolated parts of any of the other three reef cat¬ egories, and they sometimes occur completely separate from other kinds of reefs.
Coral Sea Part of the South Pacific Ocean. It is located between Queens¬ land, Australia, on the west and Vanuatu and New Caledonia on the east, and bordered on the north by Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Occupying an area of 1,849,800 sq mi (4,791,000 sq km), it merges with the Tasman Sea and Solomon Sea and is connected to the Arafura Sea via the Torres Strait. It was named for its many coral formations, including the Great Barrier Reef. During World War II it was the scene of a strategic U.S. naval and air victory over the Japanese (1942).
coral snake Any of about 90 species of strongly patterned burrowing elapids. “True” forms are limited to the New World, chiefly the tropics, but similar species live in Asia and Africa. Secretive and docile, coral snakes rarely bite when handled, but the venom of some can kill a person. Most prey on other snakes. More than 50 species in the largest genus, Micru- rus, range from the southern U.S. to Argentina. They are ringed with red, black, and yellow or white. The eastern coral snake, or harlequin snake {Micrurus fulvius), ranges from North Carolina and Missouri in the U.S. to northeastern Mexico and is about 30 in. (76 cm) long, with wide bands
of red and black separated by yellow. The rhyme “Red on yellow, dan¬ gerous fellow” distinguishes it from similarly coloured but harmless spe¬ cies.
Coralli, Jean orig. Giovanni Coralli Peracini (b. Jan. 15, 1779, Paris, France—d. May 1, 1854, Paris) French dancer and choreographer. He made his debut at the Paris Opera in 1802. His appointment as ballet master at the Opera (1831-50) coincided with the most brilliant phase of the Romantic ballet. In 1841 Coralli began to work with the ballerina Car- lotta Grisi in Giselle, now regarded as a classic. Although attributed solely to Coralli, most of its principal action was arranged by Jules Perrot. The choreography of La Peri (1843), however, was entirely Coralli’s.