geochronometern.
/ˌdʒiːə(ʊ)krəˈnɒmᵻtə/, U.S. /ˌdʒioʊkrəˈnɑmədər/ Geology. rare before mid 20th cent.
A feature, phenomenon, organism, etc., used as a means of dating geological events or (now historical) ascertaining the age of the earth. Cf. radiometric dating n. at radiometric adj. Compounds.
ΚΠ
1872 Eng. Mechanic 13 Sept. 663/3 The vain attempt..to make a geo-chronometer of what is the most utterly uncertain and unfit of all motions for such a purpose, the insensible rise and fall of land.
1888 Eng. Mechanic 18 May 259/1 He and De Saussure..would have made glaciers one of their chief geo-chronometers.
1961 Science 14 Apr. 1105/2 No significant improvement in the construction of the geologic time scale could be made until the new isotopic geochronometers based on the radioactive decay of rubidium-87 and potassium-40 were discovered.
1988 N.Z. Jrnl. Geol. & Geophysics 31 473/2 Sanidines, the most reliable geochronometer in Mt Somers Volcanics, are in the age range 88–99 Ma.
2009 D. R. Oldroyd in M. Kölbl-Ebert Geol. & Relig. 13/1 De Luc's pre-Flood geohistory certainly did not contribute to the emergence of geoscience, regardless of the methodological soundness of the geochronometers.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1872