GLACIAL EPOCH • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Glacial epoch

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/glˈeɪʃəl ˈɛpək/ Listen

adjective

Glacial adj.

Pertaining to ice or to its action; consisting of ice; frozen; icy; esp., pertaining to glaciers; as, glacial phenomena.

(Chem.) Resembling ice; having the appearance and consistency of ice; said of certain solid compounds; as, glacial phosphoric or acetic acids.

Glacial acid (Chem.), an acid of such strength or purity as to crystallize at an ordinary temperature, in an icelike form; as acetic or carbolic acid.

Glacial drift (Geol.), earth and rocks which have been transported by moving ice, land ice, or icebergs; bowlder drift.

Glacial epoch or Glacial period (Geol.), a period during which the climate of the modern temperate regions was polar, and ice covered large portions of the northern hemisphere to the mountain tops.

Glacial theory or Glacial hypothesis. (Geol.) See Glacier theory, under Glacier.

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Etymology of 'Glacial epoch'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Glacial epoch" Quotes from Famous Books

... these questions, and specially, I suspect, that last one, ought to lead the young student up to the great and complex question—How were these islands re-peopled with plants and animals, after the long and wholesale catastrophe of the glacial epoch? ...

— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... formed by a last flickering of the ancient fires. Dr. Bowman says that the greater part of the vast accumulation of lavas and volcanic cinders in this vicinity goes far back to a period preceding the last glacial epoch. The enormous amount of erosion that has taken place in the adjacent canyons and the great numbers of strata, composed of lava flows, laid bare by the mighty streams of the glacial period all ...

— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... a hazardous statement to make about a remote ancestor, in the age before the great glacial epoch had furrowed the mountains of Northern Europe; but, nevertheless, it is strictly true and strictly demonstrable. Just try, as you read, to draw with the forefinger and thumb of your right hand an imaginary human profile on the page on which these words are printed. Do you observe that (unless ...

— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... heights is equally out of the question. The difficulty was so great, that some naturalists were driven to believe that these species were all separately created twice over on these distant peaks. The determination of a recent glacial epoch, however, soon offered a much more satisfactory solution, and one that is now universally accepted by men of science. At this period, when the mountains of Wales were full of glaciers, and the mountainous parts of ...

— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... answer to the first, with which I am acquainted, is suggested by Dr. Abbott in chapter xxxii. of his "Primitive Industry." After showing that during the last glacial epoch there were no climatic conditions southward of the actual ice-cap which would preclude the existence of men, since they would gradually become used to the slow change (as did so many surviving forms of animal and vegetable life), Dr. Abbott further clears the ...

— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various