Rodents seen around old New England in geological epoch (7)
I believe the answer is:
miocene
'geological epoch' is the definition.
'Miocene' can be an answer for 'epoch' (Miocene epoch is an example). I'm not sure about the 'geological' bit.
'rodents seen around old new england' is the wordplay.
'rodents' becomes 'mice' (mouse is a kind of rodent).
'seen around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'new' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation eg NT for New Testament).
'england' becomes 'e'.
'mice' placed around 'o' is 'mioce'.
'mioce'+'n'+'e'='MIOCENE'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for miocene that I've seen before include "When apes first appear" , "Epoch when apes appeared; mice eon (anagram)" , "distant epoch" , "Certain strata" , "Geological period" .)