sub-Carboniferousadj.n.
/sʌbˌkɑːbəˈnɪf(ə)rəs/, U.S. /ˌsəbˌkɑrbəˈnɪf(ə)rəs/ Geology.
A. adj.
Lying immediately beneath the Carboniferous series; (also) forming the lower, non-coal-bearing, part of the Carboniferous series.
ΚΠ
1825 Amer. Mechanics' Mag. 23 July 399/1 The lime-works which occupy the edges of the great sub-carboniferous limestone district of Debyshire [sic] and Staffordshire.
1877 H. A. Nicholson Anc. Life-hist. Earth (1878) xii. 158 A Lower and essentially calcareous group (the ‘Sub-Carboniferous’ or ‘Carboniferous Limestone’).
1950 Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 58 313 This fracture system..coincides with structural features in the sub-Carboniferous floor, which..profoundly affected sedimentation during Lower Carboniferous times.
2000 Proc. Geologists' Assoc. 111 295/1 What is the age of normal faulting of the sub-Carboniferous surface in West Connaught?
B. n.
With the. The system of strata of this kind, or the period in which they were laid down. Now rare.
ΚΠ
1902 Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. 20 70 In the Mississippi valley the family had its culmination in the Keokuk and St. Louis epochs, the middle of the Subcarboniferous.
1910 Encycl. Brit. V. 310/2 It became the practice to distinguish a ‘productive’ [Upper]..and an ‘unproductive’, barren..Lower Carboniferous; these two groups correspond in North America to the ‘Carboniferous’ and ‘Sub-Carboniferous’ respectively, or, as they are now sometimes styled, the ‘Pennsylvanian’ and ‘Mississippian’.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1825