Though the argument here is well-stated and obviously reasonable, I find myself wondering how well this could work outside the field of geology. After all, we’re all familiar with sand, clay and the fact that rocks can have cracks, so terms like arenaceous, argillaceous and discontinuities do have replacements understandable by the layperson. But what of concepts outside the daily experience of most people? Such common terms in other fields as valence electrons, carboxylic acid, eigenvalue or light cone have no easy replacement in ‘plain writing’, as the author calls it.
Whenever I encounter a latin/greek medical term I often amuse myself by translating it into colloquial English.