Talk:Wellington Formation

8 April 2022 edits

Discussion moved from User_talk:IveGoneAway#An_ancient_pre-Salina_kitten_for_you!.

@Smuckola:

• I see that you found the Wellington Formation. I had known about the park and the diversion channel. My son had run Cross Country there, and I went there last year looking for Graneros Shale but found the Wellington instead. I then saw that the park was named Indian Rock, and wondered why.
  • There are reasons for the bolding and capitalization that you removed from the geological names in Stratigraphy:
    • Formal unit names are always title case.
    • Informal unit names are usually sentence case, especially when named after a place, and capitalized the same as the place name.
  • It not correct to say "The upper/lower shale has two elements", suggesting divisions. The Wellington shales are only divided by the salt. The other formal and informal named members are limited thin beds within the massive shales. Do you see limestone in the infobox picture? Not really. My guess is that the waterfalls could be the three-fingers, or the Carlton, or just harder shale.
  • The members are bolded because they are registered unit names, but not notable enough to warrant their own page, but should have links to them, eventually.
    • The Carlton and Hollenberg are thin beds that can be visibly traced across the landscape, and so are marked on geology maps as thick lines for reference.
    • When present, the Millan is a marker for the top of the Wellington, and when absent, that horizon is still pretty limey.
    • Three-fingers might not be commonly capitalized, as it is definitively not formal, but bolded because articles about gas storage and exploration should (eventually) link to the section.
  • I think the Wellington is still a stub, some sections very undeveloped and others are missing, especially the fauna and Milankovitch cycles research.

The point of the bulleting format was in part to reflect the structure of the Wellington:

• Milan limestone

UPPER SHALE

• Three-finger dolomite

UPPER SHALE

• Hutchinson Salt

LOWER SHALE

• Carlton limestone

LOWER SHALE

• Hollenberg limestone

LOWER SHALE

IveGoneAway (talk) 04:05, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Here's the rest of the thread: Hey I'm really sorry for any loss of technical precision. Please put the right word instead of "elements" then. Like I said in the edit summary my only goal was to relieve the MOS:BOLD requirement of not having arbitrary bolding and bulleted lists instead of prose WP:PROSELINE. In other words, being a wikignome to support you the researcher. So I was assuming you'd be able to instantly correct that ;) Right? The overall Wellington Formation article is most definitely not a stub; what you're saying is that there are a few sections that are stubs. That's what C class is meant to cover, as long as it is already proven to be a totally viable article with an existing overall structure and body of WP:RS. Start class is meant to be simply that you've proven that it could be that, and stub is pretty darn sure or else a gazetteer article like a map. — Smuckola(talk) 05:36, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Bolding geologic subunits

@Smuckola: Zeroeth. How do I do it? I spent the whole weekend.

First. MOS:BOLD "Article title terms ... [Bolding] is also done at the first occurrence of a term (commonly a synonym in the lead) that redirects to the article or one of its subsections, whether the term appears in the lead or not (see § Other uses, below). ... After following a redirect: Terms which redirect to an article or section are commonly bolded when they appear in the first couple of paragraphs of the lead section, or at the beginning of another section (for example, subtopics treated in their own sections or alternative names for the main topic – see § Article title terms, above).

Second. See Notability#Stratigraphic_units. A convention is that every U.S. geologic unit gets a stub start if it is mentioned in such sources as Fossilworks or Geolex; however, certain minor subunits can be adequately covered within the page of it's superunit especially for subunits with no existence beyond the superunit. If such a unit was covered in a non-notable stub, then the stub would be merged with the superunit's page with a redirect to the section covering the subunit. This is why subunits are bolded.

Third, "The first letters of all words used in the names of formal geologic units are capitalized(...)." North American Stratigraphic Code, Article 7, page 1562.

Fourth, "The upper/lower shale has two elements". Such precision of simple counting is not appropriate, as the unit is not well enough defined to state that there are (exactly) two members, or four. Five is right out.

Fifth, At this point. WP has not enough information to support notability for Milan Limestone, three-finger dolomite, Carlton Limestone, Hollenberg Limestone, and Annelly Gypsum. But, "As more information from reliable sources is gathered on the formation, a point may be reached where it makes sense to split the formation into its own article."

Sixth, Milan Limestone, Carlton Limestone, Hutchinson Salt, and Hollenberg Limestone are formal. Three-finger dolomite is informal but notable with multiple papers, and may be a hydrocarbon play. Not sure if Annelly gypsum and Geuda Springs shale are informal or abandoned.

The Stratigraphy section, IMO, is clearly only a stub; but, even as such, the unmodified Section provided better coverage than the typical Fossilworks stub. By covering these lesser units within the Wellington page, we skip the steps of creating trivial stubs only to then merge them with redirects into the Wellington.

IveGoneAway (talk) 01:28, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

@IveGoneAway: You are a titan and a scholar. Thank you. I am sincerely sorry if I frustrated you one particle and I hope the outcome is superior so far! FYI, I inquired to the MOS community as to whether I miscomprehended the application, and I was fixin on today self-reverting the spot you'd mentioned if I didn't get a resolution. It was very rude of me to not inform you of that, or to not just revert it already anyway, as I thought of saying many times while being distracted. Sorry. I didn't realize the article was a collection of former stubs with a whole bunch of incoming redirects; very nice. On Wikipedia, I have seen many expert domains of science, military, and medicine, where most editors are not competent for anything more than metadata and basic English. Some Wikiprojects have especially high standards plus a lot of domain-specific protocol plus the incomprehensible technicality of the subject matter. I came to this subject thinking of it as a place I know, with a bunch of technical features, but I see that it's a domain of geological science. I've never been into that! Your first explanation was still so technical that it's still incomprehensible lol. ;) In any case, I hope that I can read this another 13 times and see if I can contribute any readability for newbies without any doubt, or else I'll buzz off. — Smuckola(talk) 04:34, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, if maybe a bit over-flattering, I am more of a mavin with some ability for technical writing than an expert. In this case, the redirects were not stubs to start with; rather, they were topics that would have been stubs under prior practice.

An aspect of stratigraphy is that no strata can be effectively classified without refernces to other strata classification (yes, it is a bit recursive), so, do I make red links or stubs or merges?

There is so much more to add to the Wellington page (environment, taxa, images, completion of stratigraphic facies, the three levels of cyclicity including Milankovitch cycles and seasons). It is like the Dakota Formation in that you go to national museums and see fossils from Kansas. (What fossils are at the Smoky Hill Museum?). I knew nothing about it when I stumbled over it last September at the same time I stumbled over Indian Rock. But, I have no idea how I will get around to fleshing it out.

IveGoneAway (talk) 12:45, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I wanted to add that the Stratigraphy section is better than it was two weeks ago. However, it is still just a taste of what can be there. I would like to touch the Marble Block, but I don't have any travel plans to Wellington.

IveGoneAway (talk) 14:24, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Natural brines and surface contamination thereof

@Smuckola: [Extemporaneous notes for potential expansion]

Russell County is a particular locus of the interaction of natural brine aquifers with fresh water. Cedar Hills Sandstone and deeper Permian units bear volumes of natural brine, as does the Cretaceous Dakota (when deep).

These all interact with the fresh Ogallala, High Plains (shallow Dakota), and surface aquifers within the Smoky Hills, leading to the natural strong saltiness of the Saline River, but also elevated saltiness of portions of the Smoky Hill River and Solomon Forks, and various salt and mineral springs (Waconda Spring, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, Medicine Lodge, Geuda Springs, Gurley Salt Marsh, etc. )

The interaction between all off these aquifers is moderated by the massive shale aquitards of the Wellington Shale and Greenhorn Limestone. Additionally, the Hutchinson Salt member of the Wellington is a (the') massive natural source of saltwater within the Smoky Hill Buttes range. On the other hand, the dolomites of the upper Wellington are also minor aquifers of fresh and salt

All of these sources dominate the origin of salt and other brine minerals in the surface water of the region, or "natural sources of contamination".

The particular relevance of Russell County is the early start of oil drilling. As oil is recovered from deep strata, natural brine is brought to the surface as oil is pumped. This brine is a toxic waste product, and Russel County experienced the development of controls for disposal of this brine, generally to the original source or other already salty aquifers. Early surface disposal of this brine and later accidental spillage of this brine constitutes "human sources of contamination". Disposal wells must be carefully regulated and monitored to prevent contamination of freshwater aquifers.

IveGoneAway (talk) 19:00, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

@IveGoneAway: Well done. This edit is an example where I very occasionally ignorantly, I mean innocently, do some copy editing of existing technical text without reading or understanding sources, so thanks for verifying. And I didn't verify your verification, lol. I wonder if the World War II section has sources on the human-made degradation relevant to the area of my edit too. This article is all pretty interesting to general life, and I'm already passing this article around to locals as describing a system of general life, which brings some explanations to an otherwise boring (ha) void (ugh) of existence. Is the Wellington Formation not part of the other hilly areas around the east part of Salina beyond Indian Rock, like East Crawford St.? Or is it just at the park? One might think so because the article only details the very key point of Indian Rock, but anything running all the way between two states might be super wide. I'm vaguely gathering from the word-picture summary of the lead section, and the fact that there are sections on Russell, I70, and Salina, and because I already know where those three concepts are, that the Wellington runs all the width of western Kansas. Right? Even though a lot of it looks super flat? As a kid, desperate to pretend we had anything interesting, I'd imagine this east side of town was our micro-Colorado. And then it's flat again, eastward outside of town. And we'd drive to Hays, suddenly marveling at the continuous up-and-down of long hills and the oil wells, none of which exist around Salina or to the east except for what's occasionally apparently excavated of limestone from I70. It would be neato to have an elevation heat map that visually indicates the whole shape of what is and is not the Wellington Formation. Also, everyone has heard the idea that Kansas was a gigantic prehistoric lake, so is that relevant? There's only a passing mention of low-lying fossilized marine life so maybe not. I would think a state-sized lake would be super deep and full of monsters. — Smuckola(talk) 22:44, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

If I could, I would have you look at this picture of the general cross section of Kanas.

Kansas

I wish the cross section could be drawn for WP.

The Wellington is near the top of the blue, while the orange-red sandstones and shales that you see at the top of Indian Rock and Coronado Heights are at the bottom of the green.

In the Saline County square, Indian Rock is the north tip of the thumb of green coming up from the lower right. The yellow is Crawford; it's businesses, restaurants, and schools are on the sand and mud that the Smoky and Saline spread out over the valley.

Between the Linocoln and Bunker Hill exits, the hills of I-70 go up and down through the Fencepost limestone. There, the top of the Wellington is about 1000 feet down. I'm not sure you could even find it at the bottom of the Smoky Valley there.

I try to write three stories in geologic unit pages.

1. The environment that formed the rock.
2. The environment that formed the living landscape from the rock.
3. The human interactions with the rock.

Then, I try to explain how people can encounter the rock today.

I am limited to words and the photographs I manage to take for the most part, as I don't have the training to make WP style artwork. There are many images in the literature I wish I could add to these pages.

I would add that it is not just an I70 experience,that's just what I am most experienced with.

IveGoneAway (talk) 09:14, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the Wellington is a reason Crawford is so flat and straight and why Salina had a SAC airbase, but the reason? I don't have the citations for that, and it is likely too nuanced. (I wouldn't put it in the lead.) I could wish that I could say that the proglacial Kaw Lake had a role, but that would be stretching a point.

The Hutchinson Salt could be contributory to the name Salina, but I don't have a citation, even if it needed to be said. Falls into the realm of trivia?

Hah, the subdivision on top of the ridge of Wellington Shale is named "Victoria Heights"! We are sure they didn't know.

IveGoneAway (talk) 14:15, 18 April 2022 (UTC) 14:28, 18 April 2022 (UTC)