geological time
2
7.2
- noun
- /ˌdʒiəˈlɒdʒɪkəl taɪm/
- Specialized
:
tiempo geológico
- Paleontologists do discuss the inevitability of extinction for all species in the long run and on the broad scale of geological time.
- geological time scale
Examples
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Both of these slow down the movement of the salts, but eventually, over geological time, much of it washes into the creek.
Blog text (13) -
Over millions of years, the Earth's surface has been shaped by forces acting over geological time.
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In fact, on geological time scales, rock kind of just flows like a liquid.
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We are virtually powerless over the earth at our planet's own geological time scale.
Academic text (1990) -
Different clusters of species, in turn, might arise at different periods in a world's history, as great lineages rise and fall through geological time.
Academic text (1999) -
You are talking about very large CO2 differences during geological time, differences measured in thousands of ppm.
Blog text (9) -
Superfund site remediation is measured in geological time, and the appearance of a site on the National Priorities List deters potential investors.
Academic text (2002) -
The patterns characteristic of relatively young and disturbed soils may mask the underlying geological time-scale influences that have a major impact on soil communities.
Academic text (1999) -
I love geological time—a wondrous and expansive notion that sets the foundation of my chosen profession.
Academic text (1990) -
The Anthropocene Working Group of the International Union of Geological Sciences announced on 29 August 2016 that it is preparing a formal proposal to designate the Anthropocene as an official unit of geological time (Carrington 2016).
Academic text (2018)
Synonyms
2
7.3
A very long time in Earth's history when rocks and life formed before humans existed
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'geological' (relating to Earth's physical structure and processes) with 'time', so its meaning—time scales concerning Earth's formation and history—is directly and predictably derivable from the constituents. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words should be able to infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Geological time comes from the image of rock layers as the pages of a huge, old book that show Earth's past. Because each 'page' covers millions of years, the phrase now means a 'very long time' in Earth's history, especially 'before people existed'.