fossiliferous
adjEtymology From fossil + -i- + -ferous.
1
Containing fossils.
- Having already described him [the whale] in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Fossil Whale”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 506:
- The area contains a great thickness of well exposed fossiliferous, marine strata of uppermost Cretaceous and Eocene age, and it is felt that the most continuous and complete section may be found here.1951, Max B Payne, Type Moreno formation and overlying Eocene strata on the West Side of the San Joaquin Valley, Fresno and Merced Counties, California, page 3:
- Derived terms
- fossiliferously, nonfossiliferous, non-fossiliferous, unfossiliferous