a. [SUB- 1 a. Cf. F. subaérien.] Chiefly Geol. and Phys. Geog. Taking place, existing, operating or formed in the open air or on the earth’s surface, as opposed to subaqueous, submarine, subterranean.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 177. We think that we shall not strain analogy too far if we suppose the same laws to govern the subaqueous and subaërial phenomena.
1841. Trimmer, Pract. Geol., 172. Many subaërial volcanos have ejected trachyte and basaltic lava.
1852. Dana, Crust., I. 5. Insects are essentially sub-aerial species.
1872. W. S. Symonds, Rec. Rocks, vi. 155. Vast masses of strata have been removed by subaerial denudation.
1880. Dawkins, Early Man in Brit., vii. 208. The rarity of sub-aerial refuse-heaps compared with those in caves and under rocks.
Hence Subaerially adv.; Subaerialist, one who holds the view that a certain formation is subaerial; also attrib.
1870. Contemp. Rev., XV. 625. It must have accumulated, subaërially, upon the surface of a soil covered by a forest of cryptogamous plants.
1887. Athenæum, 24 Sept., 410/3. In 1865 the battle of the ‘Uniformitarians’ and ‘Cataclysmists,’ ‘Sub-aërialists’ and ‘Marinists,’ was still raging. Ibid. The most extreme … sub-aërialist views.
