Huronianadj.n.
/hjʊəˈrəʊnɪən/, U.S. /ˌhjʊˈroʊniən/ Geology.
A. adj.
Designating a series of (chiefly sedimentary) rocks occurring in south-eastern Canada and the processes and periods in which they were formed; of or relating to these rocks or their formation. In later use chiefly with reference to a series of glaciations during which some of these rocks were laid down, or the era of the Proterozoic (2400 to 2100 million years ago approx.) when this occurred.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > age or period > stratigraphic units > [adjective] > pre-Cambrian > specific
Huronian1854
Lewisian1859
Archaean1872
Torridon1873
Keweenawan1876
Pebidian1877
Malvernian1879
Longmyndian1887
Torridonian1893
Moinian1938
Laxfordian1950
1854 W. E. Logan in Canad. Jrnl. Aug. 1/1 The rocks comprehended in the section in descending order are..2. Huronian, or Copper-bearing rocks, perhaps equivalent to the Cambrian of England.
1876 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. 111 210 We are therefore justified..in regarding the Copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior as a distinct and independent series, marking a definite geological period which separates the Silurian from the Huronian ages.
1909 Jrnl. Canad. Mining Inst. 11 123 Iron pyrites and iron carbonate were somewhat equally deposited in the iron formation of Keewatin times, and iron carbonate predominated in Lower Huronian and Animikie times.
1952 W. J. Miller Introd. Hist. Geol. (ed. 6) x. 87 The Huronian rocks are principally gray and green quartzites, schists, slates, crystalline limestones, conglomerates, and beds of iron ore, all of which are more or less metamorphosed sediments.
1991 New Scientist 28 Sept. 40/2 One project the Toronto team is pursuing..is the dating of sedimentary rocks...We're having some success, with Huronian sediments, famous sediments north of Lake Huron.
2004 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) July 58/2 Like the better-studied late Proterozoic glaciations, the Huronian event appears to have been global.
B. n.
With the. The Huronian series of rocks; the Huronian era.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > age or period > stratigraphic units > [noun] > pre-Cambrian formations
Huronian1857
Labradorian1870
Keweenawan1876
sparagmite1882
Keewatin1886
Torridonian1893
Laxfordian1950
1857 A. Murray in Rep. Geol. Surv. Canada 1853–6 168 The rocks of the region explored during the season, embrace two of the oldest recognised geological formatio[n]s, the Laurentian and Huronian.
1884 Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv. No. 8. iii. 49 The failure thus far to find fossils in the Huronian is not to be attributed to their destruction by metamorphic action, but rather to an actual, original barrenness of the series.
1911 Mining & Engin. World 8 July 60/1 There was more or less volcanic activity during the Huronian.
1988 P. Cloud Oasis in Space x. 224/2 Warming climates.., perhaps due to equatorward drift of proto-North America, produced the oldest prominent redbeds in the upper Huronian of Ontario.
2005 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A 102 11131/2 The final glaciation in the Huronian, the Gowganda, is overlain by several kilometers of sediments in the Lorrain, Gordon Lake, and Bar River formations.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1854