| 释义 |
‖ diluvium|dɪˈl(j)uːvɪəm|
[a. L. dīluvium flood, inundation, deluge, f. dīluĕre to wash to pieces, wash away, dissolve by water: see dilute.]
A term applied to superficial deposits which appear not to have been formed by the ordinary slow operations of water, but to be due to some extraordinary action on a vast scale; such were at first attributed to the Noachian or Universal deluge, whence the name; the chief of these deposits were those of the Northern Drift or Boulder formation at the close of the Tertiary Period, to which the name continued to be applied after the theory of their origin was given up; it is now generally ‘applied to all masses apparently the result of powerful aqueous agency’.
1819J. Hodgson in Raine Mem. (1857) I. 265 The cliffs are very white, excepting where they are tarnished by diluvium falling from the tops of the cliffs. 1823W. Buckland Reliq. Diluv. 2 The word diluvium..I apply to those extensive and general deposits of superficial loam and gravel, which appear to have been produced by the last great convulsion that has affected our planet. 1832H. T. De la Beche Geol. Man. 183 The old transported gravel, or diluvium of Prof. Buckland. 1839Murchison Silur. Syst. i. xxxvii. 509 ‘Diluvium’ as used by Elie de Beaumont and the modern foreign geologists, means precisely what I term drift. 1849M. Somerville Connect. Phys. Sc. x. 87 Strata containing marine diluvia..must have been formed at the bottom of the ocean. 1862J. Taylor in Macm. Mag. Sept. 390 Tusks and teeth in a bed of diluvium..immediately incumbent on stratified beds of lias. 1873Geikie Gt. Ice Age xxvii. 369 Ancient alluvium or diluvium overlying moraine-profonde. 1874Lyell Students' Geol. xi. (ed. 3) 145 The term ‘diluvium’ was for a time the popular name of the boulder formation, because it was referred by many to the deluge of Noah, while others retained the name as expressive of their opinion that a series of diluvial waves raised by hurricanes..or by earthquakes..had swept over the continents, carrying with them vast masses of mud and heavy stones. |