a. (sb.) Geol. Also -appen(n)ine. [SUB- 12.] Applied to a series of strata of Pliocene age, such as are characteristic of the formation of the flanks of the Apennines in Italy; belonging to or characteristic of these strata.
1822. Edin. Rev., XXXVII. 50. Subappennine alluvial soils.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 110. Throughout a great part of Italy, where the marls and sands of the Subapennine hills are elevated to considerable heights.
1851. Richardson, Geol., viii. 248. The subapennine beds of Piedmont.
1861. P. P. Carpenter, in Rep. Smithsonian Instit. 1860, 159. The Subappenine tertiaries of Piedmont.
b. sb. pl. The geological series bearing this name; a low range of hills skirting the slopes of the Apennines in Italy.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 137, note. The newest tertiary strata of the age of the Subapennines. Ibid. (1833), III. 155. Brocchi, the first Italian geologist who described this newer group in detail, gave it the name of the Subapennines.
