neptunicadj.

1851 L. Agassiz & A. A. Gould Princ. Zoöl. (rev. ed.) i. xiv. 215 The rocks which compose the crust of our globe are of two kinds:..2. The Sedimentary or Stratified Rocks, called also Neptunic Rocks, which have been deposited in water, in the same manner as modern seas and lakes deposit sand and mud on their shores, or at the bottom.

1864 Proc. Royal Geogr. Soc. 8 204 The ingenious author..has not yet developed his proofs in favour of his novel system, in which..he seems to carry the chemical and Neptunic ideas of Bischoff to..an extravagant length.

1877 Amer. Naturalist 11 466 We have long known..even from the structure of the stratified crust of the earth alone, that its origin and the formation of neptunic rocks from water must have taken at least several millions of years.

1888 J. J. H. Teall Brit. Petrogr. 424 Aqueous... This term embraces, or is synonymous with, the following: neptunic, hydatogenic, sedimentary, [etc.].

1904 Science 14 Oct. 486/1 The Plutonic versus the Neptunic theories.

1949 H. H. Read Geology iii. 93 For the writer, then, the terms igneous and metamorphic are useful only on restricted occasions; a classification of rocks into Neptunic or sedimentary, Volcanic, and Plutonic will be found, he believes, to suit the earth-machine as a whole much better than the customary classification.

1896 A. P. Pavlov in Geol. Mag. 4th Decade 3 50 To distinguish such veins and dikes from volcanic veins and dikes, I shall venture to call these cases by the brief appellation of Neptunic veins or Neptunic dikes. The rock forming the Neptunic dike of Alatyr turned out to be a quartz sand mixed with glauconitic grains.

1976 Internat. Geol. Rev. 18 536/2 The neptunic dikes are mainly confined to the Lower Cretaceous deposits.

1984 Geology 12 252/1 The breccias pass into neptunic dikes or fissures.