ˈgreen-sand, ˈgreensand
1. Min. and Geol. a. = glauconite, green earth. b. A variety of sandstone, usually imperfectly consolidated, consisting largely of glauconite. c. A formation consisting largely of this sandstone; denominated Upper Greensand or Lower Greensand from the position of the stratum relatively to the gault.
| 1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) II. 149 Green sand of Peru. Its colour is grass green; of the consistence of sand. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 477 Marine strata about the age of our chalk and green-sand. 1847 Ansted Anc. World x. 228 The Upper Greensand is generally barren of fossils. 1873 Dawson Earth & Man ix. 229 The mineral Glauconite or ‘green-sand’. 1875 ― Dawn of Life v. 99 Glauconite..gives by the abundance of its little bottle-green concretions the name of green-sand to formations of this age. 1876 Page Adv. Text-Bk. Geol. xviii. 339. |
| attrib. 1865 Reader No. 118. 377/2 Greensand fossils. 1868 Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869) 69 Greensand marls. |
2. (See green a. 9 d.)