GEOLOGICAL TIME

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does geological time mean? 

• GEOLOGICAL TIME (noun)
  The noun GEOLOGICAL TIME has 1 sense:

1. the time of the physical formation and development of the earth (especially prior to human history)

  Familiarity information: GEOLOGICAL TIME used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GEOLOGICAL TIME (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The time of the physical formation and development of the earth (especially prior to human history)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

geologic time; geological time

Hypernyms ("geological time" is a kind of...):

time (the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "geological time"):

aeon; eon (the longest division of geological time)

geological period; period (a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed)

era; geological era (a major division of geological time; an era is usually divided into two or more periods)

epoch (a unit of geological time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself divided into ages)

 Context examples 

The results suggest that liquid water may have existed beneath the surface of Ceres in recent geological time.

(Recent Hydrothermal Activity May Explain Ceres' Brightest Area, NASA)

Scientists modelled the habitable area for each group of birds and found that their estimated habitable ranges in the past were very different from their geographic distributions today, in all cases shifting towards the equator over geological time.

(Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics, University of Cambridge)