wernerian

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Partaking of or in conformity with the views of Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750–1817), a German geologist, professor in the mining-school of Freiberg, Saxony, who had much influence on the development, of geology at the time when this branch of science began to be seriously studied. He was the principal expounder of the so-called Neptunian theory of the earth's formation, according to which the earth was originally covered by a chaotic ocean which held the materials of all the rocks in solution, and from which ocean the various formations were precipitated one after another.
2. n. In geology, an advocate of the Wernerian theory.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Of or pertaining to A. G. Werner, The German mineralogist and geologist, who classified minerals according to their external characters, and advocated the theory that the strata of the earth's crust were formed by depositions from water; designating, or according to, Werner's system.