Talk:Geology of the United States/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Geology of the United States. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Province map?

The Geologic provinces section cries out for a map illustrating the boundaries of the provinces. --JohnRDaily 02:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move to Geology of North America

Does anyone have any feelings about moving to Geology of North America instead? -Ravedave (talk) 21:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. --Amaltheus (talk) 03:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Any reason not to do a simple move? Note there is not a Geology of Mexico or Geology of Canada article.

Physiographic provinces of the U.S.

I guess that there are lots of ways to slice & dice things. It's a shame that neither of these maps seems to match the text in the section on the physiographic regions of the United States. Is there a reason that the text could not be manipulated to somewhat reflect these? I created them with GIS data from the USGS. The full metadata for the data set is linked to from the images' description pages, and that information includes the full pedigree of the data presented in these maps. If that just doesn't match current thinking, I'd be happy to create a new one given the data, preferably as a shapefile, though a bitmip image begging to be recreated as an vector image might work in a pinch.

BTW, I'd be more than happy to redo this if I could find a dataset that covered the whole of North America. The most prolific source of public domain geographic & geologic data and information for the continent is the USGS, and they understandably specialize in the 50 States. Canadian & Mexican data are somewhat harder to come by, while those governments retain copyright on most of what can be found. --Kbh3^rd talk 01:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

By political division

It's pretty rare that political divisions lie along lines that would make sense from a geological perspective (aside, I suppose, from boundaries that are oceans.) I don't think we should be pursuing more articles about geology by state; regions (such as "Pacific Northwest", "Rocky Mountains", etc.) make more sense. I've reverted some recent template additions to a number of related articles. -Pete (talk) 16:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

If we shouldn't be pursuing geology articles by political division, we should determine another way of dividing up the continent's geology. A template at the bottom of North American geology pages would be helpful for navigation and organization; we just need to create one that will encompass the appropriate articles. Neelix (talk) 16:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with a "Geology of North America" template that links to the existing articles. Might take a little creativity to organize it well, but it should be possible. I just don't see any reason to encourage the creation of, say, a "Geology of Oregon" article when a perfectly serviceable "Geology of the Pacific Northwest" article exists. I think that's probably true of most states; the geology of the region makes more sense for an article. -Pete (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you think of the idea of using the "Geology of North America" article that I added previously, but creating redirects to the larger more applicable areas from the state names? For example, "Geology of Oregon" would redirect to "Geology of the Pacific Northwest", as would the other links to states in that area. Where the state is the proper area to use geologically, the page would be an article rather than a redirect. Where it is too specific, it could redirect to an article that pertains to a larger area. Neelix (talk) 20:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer to build something with very few redirects, so that the reader can readily see what articles do and don't exist. I just posted a note at WikiProject Geology, to see if anyone there wants to weigh in. Glad you're motivated to work on a navbox, and I'm guessing they will be, too! -Pete (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is most of this article about American geology? Half of North America's geology lies in Canada, as well as some of the oldest (i.e. Canadian Shield). Black Tusk 02:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Because they moved it here from the America-specific page. In answer to I just don't see any reason to encourage the creation of, say, a "Geology of Oregon" article when a perfectly serviceable "Geology of the Pacific Northwest" article exists, it's because people want information about the geology of Oregon and don't want to (and will be insulted and annoyed about having to) wade through information about northern California, Washington, Idaho, and Vancouver Island, especially if more active writers in those other areas produces (as it inevitably will) lopsided articles such as this one, full of maps and links inappropriate to the page heading. -LlywelynII (talk) 18:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Then more work is in need for this article. It does not seem to get much attention by anyone. Volcanoguy 08:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Huge collection of links

I moved those here because they seem overspecific for this article. Some probably can be reworked into the a text section. Others might be better suited in other articles. --Tobias1984 (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Seismic faults

Faults in California

Map of the San Andreas Fault, showing relative motion.

Mines

Related images

North America bedrock and terrain
North American cratons and basement rocks.
The maximum extent of glacial ice in the north polar area during Pleistocene time
Generalized geographic map of the United States in Late Cretaceous time
Generalized geographic map of the United States in Middle Pennsylvanian time
Physiographic divisions of the conterminous 48 US states
Physiographic provinces of the conterminous 48 US states

Geology of the Rocky Mountains

View from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Article needs massive overhaul

Yes, the Hispanophones are dead wrong that "English: America" doesn't mean the USA, but this article is also dead wrong that "North America" does. I see above that this actually is a "Geology of the United States" article that was nonsensically renamed. It doesn't need to go back, but it does need to have all the inappropriate US-specific maps and state-level links removed. Those need to go to a (I suppose, new?) "Geology of the United States" article.

The entire approach is wrong-headed. Yes, geological features are noncontiguous with most political boundaries. But people care more about their countries or regions (in all their diversity or odd boundaries) than whatever particular feature they happen to be on top of at the moment. Without summary pages, they wouldn't even know where to begin looking. The alternative is to cram all country-specific geological information into sections of the specific state and national pages, but those sections should just be overviews and not full treatments. And in any case, US-specific maps don't belong on this one. -LlywelynII (talk) 18:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, this article needs serious improvement, but rather than an overhaul, it need addition. There are no geology articles for Canada, Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean. If these are works in progress, I haven't found them anywhere. I suggest that until there exist sections for the rest of the continent, the article's title should be reverted to "Geology of the United States".Jakaloke (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

A sensible approach would seem to me to write a comprehensive Geology of N America article, incorporating current content from Geol of Canada and Mexico as appropriate, then retrospectively split this content (and expand it?) to make the sub articles. But yes, strongly agree a rewrite from 1st principles is probably justified. (I'm afraid I'm moving state and job right now, but might be able to help some in the medium term.) DanHobley (talk) 04:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)