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Crater categorization essay

The CfD notice above about proposed deletion of the categories for Subsidence craters and Unknown origin craters also had a question whether an essay on categorization of craters was needed. So far in the CfD discussion the essay idea has gotten some support. SMcCandlish suggested it could go under WP:GEOLOGY, which makes sense to me. So I came back here to start this discussion.

Background info: in 2009 there was a mass renaming CfD of crater-related categories which moved categories including "Craters..." to "Impact craters...". The lesson learned was that it helped a lot to have the criteria for inclusion, the type of crater, as part of the category name. But over the years some well-meaning editors re-created some of the ambiguous categories. I recently cleaned up Category:Craters into a disambiguation category with the template instructing editors to categorize under Category:Impact craters, Category:Volcanic craters or Category:Explosion craters. I also found Category:Craters on Earth had been re-created, and turned it into a template-redirected category pointing at Category:Impact craters on Earth. I'm not going to submit CfD's for those two, because human nature says they'll just get re-created again. They're better off with pointers to the right places to categorize.

While an essay is in discussion, other tips which should be included are use of the {{Cite Earth Impact DB}} template for confirmed impact craters (which adds the article to Category:Earth Impact Database) or placing unconfirmed craters in Category:Possible impact craters on Earth. There has been a problem with overzealous editors pouncing on news of possible new impact craters, categorizing and describing them as if confirmed. The problem is that it can take years to confirm evidence (usually shocked quartz but sometimes shatter cones or other impactites) them and get them into the Earth Impact Database, especially for buried craters which can't be accessed from the surface.

Other advice should say what not to categorize as craters. For example, cave collapses are called sinkholes. Other miscellaneous depressions should go under Category:depressions (geology).

So there's stuff to record to help future editors. Who has other ideas to add to it? We should also figure out a good and consistent place for it to go in the WikiProject Geology page hierarchy. Ikluft (talk) 17:29, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

information Needs discussion
Should we move the essay User:Ikluft/essay/Categorization of craters -> Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Essays/Categorization of craters? I'd like to hear from at least a few WikiProject Geology editors before I move it to a subpage of the project. This is to establish that future WikiProject Geology essays should not be created initially in the WikiProject Geology namespace, but should be started by editors as user essays and would only become a WikiProject Geology essay after at least minimal response in the WikiProject's talk page accepting it as part of the WikiProject. I'll start the tally with my own response - see WP:Discussion templates for more like the one I used. If you don't support the move, please state what changes the essay needs for that to be acceptable and to reach consensus on the move. Obviously this does not set the essay in concrete - normal wikimaintenance will continue under the umbrella of WikiProject Geology after the move. Ikluft (talk) 20:26, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

  •  Yes As author, I support the move. Thanks to the editors who suggested it should be located under WikiProject Geology. Ikluft (talk) 20:26, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes. I'm not a regular participant here, but am at WP:CFD, and I agree with the essay from that perspective (and trust the sourcing, when it comes to the geological perspective). It's well-thought-out, describes actual best practices as we've developed them, and is a good example of how to properly write a WP:PROJPAGE. I did some minor copyediting and format-tweaking on it. PS: The proposed shortcuts for it (WP:CRATERCAT and WP:CRATER, as I recall) make sense, though I would also give it WP:CRATERS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
    Thank you! Those edits were helpful. I also updated the proposed shortcut from WP:CRATER to WP:CRATERS as suggested. Encouragement from you and others in the CfD discussions when I asked if an essay was a good idea, helped get this effort started. Ikluft (talk) 04:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • ω Awaiting more comments before moving the essay under WikiProject Geology. Ikluft (talk) 05:54, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Still waiting for more review comments below. Ikluft (talk) 08:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Quick summary of the changes: the lead was updated to describe the dictionary definition of a crater as being formed by an explosion or eruption, since some crater-forming eruptions actually involve collapses. Then there were changes to the volcanic crater section, though mostly scaled back after the lead included eruptions. Most of the discussion worked out how to avoid appearance of conflict between the dictionary definition requiring an explosion and more precise geology language when not all eruptive activity is explosive. It still involves a lot more energetic processes to differentiate from a sinkhole, which fails the definition of a crater. Ikluft (talk) 18:28, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Category renaming discussions in progress: Crater lakes to Volcanic crater lakes and Annular lakes to Impact crater lakes

Calling attention to two category renaming discussions currently in progress: Category:Crater lakes to Category:Volcanic crater lakes at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2019_November_20#Category:Crater_lakes, and Category:Annular lakes to Category:Impact crater lakes at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2019_November_20#Category:Annular_lakes. Ikluft (talk) 05:32, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

  •  Done Both CfR discussions passed. I updated the "Categorization of craters" essay to reflect those results, and added a table of crater-related CfD/CfR/CfM discussions. The essay is still pending approval to move from my userspace to a subpage of WikiProject Geology. Please comment in the essay's review discussion above to give your feedback and/or help approve that move. (WikiProject essays should be approved by discussion, not unilateral action. But that means there needs to be enough response to qualify as a discussion.) Ikluft (talk) 00:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Aurica

A review is requested of this draft on the forecast of this future supercontinent. Is the draft properly supported by reliable sources, and should it be accepted? Robert McClenon (talk) 06:03, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a good topic and I've seen enough sources discussing it that it probably merits inclusion. Itswikisam might want to know about WP:RX though - it seems like they are using newspaper articles because they can't access paywalled sources. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Darling Cinder Pit

Might someone be interested in looking at Darling Cinder Pit, apparently our only article about a cinder mine. Sources mention cinders, scoria and pumice but I'm not sure if there was just one type of stuff mined here or different materials for different purposes.----Pontificalibus 15:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Mineral species

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#March 2 under the title "Mineral species" with which members of this WikiProject may be able to help. Narky Blert (talk) 04:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Paleotempestology/GA1

Greetings,

there has been a request for a second opinion on Talk:Paleotempestology/GA1 that needs input. Note that I am the GA nominator of that article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Specimen ID from personal picture library?? Where can I find a place to share pics? I am a diabled single Mom of 4 and due to my interest, my kiddos have been nurtured to love our earth as an incredible Everlasting mystery

? Happyhodgepodge (talk) 23:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Flickr is a photo sharing site. If the images are educational and you are happy with a free license you can upload to Wikimedia commons. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:38, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Reddit has a couple of great subreddits that will normally happily help you identify rocks and fossils that you have pictures of. See https://fossilid.reddit.com and https://whatsthisrock.reddit.com. DanHobley (talk) 10:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
@Happyhodgepodge: Welcome and nice to see your kids are interested in Earth as much as us! First and foremost you should note down where you found the rocks and if they were lying loose or part of a bigger piece of rock. Do that in any case, also the people you will come across at the recommended sites will ask you that. Enjoy! Tisquesusa (talk) 12:17, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Citations for geological maps

I often find myself wanting to cite geological maps published by the British Geological Survey, either the printed paper versions or else the scanned images of the same material available on-line these days on the BGS website but am often at a loss as to how best to cite them using the templates available (cite book, cite web, of course). Anyone else have concerns here? It will apply to maps produced in any nation and not just GB (and indeed in some respects to the citing of maps more widely). thanks Geopersona (talk) 10:40, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

{{Cite map}} exists. One consideration when using maps is that one should be somewhat cautious about interpreting them - WP:SYNTH. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks - that's useful to know about. Agree re caution in interpretation though did you have any particular concern in mind?. Geopersona (talk) 12:16, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Not really. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:46, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
I have found {{cite map}} to be more suitable for road maps than geological maps, so I craft my own citations, generally with {{citation}}. One consideration is that geological maps are often done in series, so that needs to be worked in. Another consideration is that while geological maps (unlike road maps) usually have named authors, they are often referred to by title or short-title (e.g., "GM-73"). See Puget_Sound_faults for some mostly consistent examples. Are you thinking of devising a specific template for geological maps? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi, J Johnson! No, hadn't been thinking about that myself, though it's perhaps a useful thought for someone to pick up on. Citation templates are of course generic and it can often be a puzzle as to what info to enter where, such is the disparate nature of different published maps and indeed series. cheers Geopersona (talk) 11:05, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Yavapai orogeny

I've tried to really expand and polish up this article. I believe it's better than a stub rating now (and its importance might be worth reassessing) but would like that determination done independently. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done I believe it is C-class now. Great editing job! — hike395 (talk) 20:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Aww, I'm blushing. Thanks. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Plate Tectonics Revolution

A weird stumpy little article. It feels like this material is better covered elsewhere and it might be better to merge it there. Anyone have any ideas? Harizotoh9 (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

"Weird stumpy little article" seems spot on. It's an interesting topic, actually, but the article as it stands seems like a lot of finger-pointing without anything backing it up or any other substance. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 13:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
We have Plate tectonics#Development of the theory, which covers the same ground better IMO. Mikenorton (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
This suggests the article was created to push a particular thesis. It'd have to be rewritten to be NPOV, and then it would look a lot like the section we already have in the main plate tectonics article. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
We could just redirect it there. Mikenorton (talk) 17:11, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Assuming you mean, redirect Plate Tectonics Revolution to the appropriate section of Plate tectonics, I am in favor, but I think this means opening a AfD request for the article with redirect as the proposed course of action. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes that is what I meant. It could be done as a proposed "Merge", allowing anything useful to be included in the main article and leaving a redirect behind. Mikenorton (talk) 17:58, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
The merge proposal is posted. Chime in as you all see fit.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
See also Timeline of the development of tectonophysics (after 1952), which also covers some of the same ground. Mikenorton (talk) 21:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
I've removed the merge template since the page has now been redirected by user:Harizotoh9, so there is nothing now on the page. SpinningSpark 12:52, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Telegraph Plateau

I created the article Telegraph Plateau but cannot work out how this somewhat archaic Victorian term fits in with modern terminology. I think it's connected with the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone but exactly how I couldn't say. For all I know, there may already be an article on the region this could be merged to as a history section. Can anyone help clear this up? SpinningSpark 12:48, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

It's really just part of the Reykjanes Ridge, which the oceanographers at that time were unaware of. It is a relatively uncomplicated bit of the ridge, with few fracture zones, assuming that the cable route lay to the north of the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. It is, however, all oceanic crust once you're west of the southern end of the Hatton-Rockall Plateau, until you get to the continental edge east of Newfoundland. This UCL article says "The irony to modern eyes is that the ‘Telegraph Plateau’ never existed, and Victorian hydrography had missed the mountainous mid-Atlantic ridge." Modern sources on the Rekyanes don't even mention it, as far as I can see. Mikenorton (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I've interpreted the Zhirov source in the article as meaning that Telegraph Plateau is south of the Minia Seamount (and hence south of Charlie-Gibbs?) but it's not very clear. And do you have any idea what he might mean by the Faraday Hills? The route is supposed to have been a great circle route between Valentia in southern Ireland and Heart's Content in Newfoundland, but I don't know what that means in relation to these features. But thanks for the UCL link, I'll put that info in the article. SpinningSpark 18:05, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Using Google Earth, any path between those end points must cross the Charlie-Gibbs, so it must have been quite complex in terms of bathymetry, but maybe they were just lucky with their routing. As to the "Faraday Hills" it looks like they were just part of the Reykjanes Ridge, based on this. Mikenorton (talk) 13:49, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
By the way, Zykov bases his geology of the area on the work of Jacques Boucart and F. Machatschek, who were both active before the development of Plate tectonics, so their views should not I think be included. Mikenorton (talk) 14:06, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Lithodemic stratigraphy

So I was revisiting the Moppin Complex article, and found myself visiting the Complex (geology) article, which turns out to be a stubby little article lacking references, and found it redlinks Lithodemic unit. It looks like the Wikipedia stratigraphy articles have very little on lithodemic stratigraphy. So here's my question: Does lithodemic stratigraphy warrant its own article, or should it be introduced as a new section under Lithostratigraphy? I'm good either way but I think we need something coherent on this topic.

(I'd then fix the redlink in Complex (geology) to point to the article or section on lithodemic stratigraphy, then flesh out the Complex (geology) article, then finally pop my stack to Moppin Complex. Ars longa, vita brevis.) --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:15, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Never heard of this one and it doesn't appear that it's getting that much traction in the wider community as yet, but who knows for the future - a lot of national geological surveys seem to be adopting it. I'm not sure that it should be under lithostratigraphy as workers contrast lithodemic with lithostratigraphic as alternatives, but maybe that's our only option. Mikenorton (talk) 21:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
My inclination, on thinking it over, is to make it a short section under Lithostratigraphy, on the principle of at least noting that the concept exists and has some traction (see. e.g. http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/stratigraphic-guide/lithodemic-stratigraphy/). Would redirect as needed. Does that seem reasonable? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 00:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Done. Look it over and see if there are any tweaks that will make it a bit more useful.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
That's looking good - take a look at this BGS classification, which describes how to handle mixed units and has some nice examples, if you feel like adding anything more. Mikenorton (talk) 20:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm up to my eyeballs trying to bring coherence to the articles on New Mexico geologic formations, but I'll get back to this when I can. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 02:29, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Connemara marble

I would like an expert answer to a question, which is whether connemara marble is a true marble, unlike verd antique. It appears to me that it is a metamorphic rock made up of calcium carbonate, in which case it is marble, but "Dammit, Jim, I'm a chemist, not a geologist". Robert McClenon (talk) 01:31, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

It's a true marble, at least in part, as it is a metamorphosed (and highly deformed) limestone, although "only a small portion of the Connemara marble horizons contain sufficient proportions of carbonate minerals to be properly termed ‘marble’" according to this. Mikenorton (talk) 06:50, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
I feel like I should point out that It's not just being a marble that sets it apart from the verd antiques: It also definitely isn't a breccia, unlike the verd antiques --Licks-rocks (talk) 07:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
User:Mikenorton, User:Licks-rocks - And I don't think that you can tell the difference between a verd antique and a Connemara marble with an acid test. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:48, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Template:Pleistocene Lakes and Seas

Greetings,

I assume that Template:Pleistocene Lakes and Seas is within the remit of this project. The template says that it is about "Pleistocene proglacial lakes and related seas" but a number of entries are about Pluvial lakes rather than glacial lakes. Would it make sense to split these off into their own template? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:28, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Improving stage/age articles

After the promotion of Paleocene to FA, I thought it was worth discussing how to improve stage/age articles. I posted this here rather than at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geology/Periods as that seems to be largely inactive. I think the most important things a stage/age article should include: History of definition, boundaries and subdivisions (Ammonite zones, Geochrons etc) and notable events if there are any. Many of the mesozoic stage/ages include long taxa tables containing dinosaurs, etc which I think are overly long and don't add much to the article, and should be removed, and perhaps replaced with a link to or a list of formations of that age. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:39, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree that long taxa tables are an eyesore, and should perhaps be replaced with a link to a category or something like that. Would a list of formations of the given age be unwieldy? Worldwide, how many formations are tied to a typical age? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:48, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Most worldwide geological formations are obscure enough to not to warrant have editors interested enough to create an article unless they contain some kind of fossil. Abyssal created many geological formation stubs in the late 2000's and early 2010's based on whether the formation was included in the "Dinosaur distribution" section of The Dinosauria book. For most other formations, with a handful of exceptions (the Marcellus Shale, Vaca Muerta, Agrio Formation and Kupferschiefer come to mind) there's little incentive to duplicate the information in stratigraphic databases and research papers. As for the numbers Category:Barremian Stage has 60 included items, almost all of which have something to do with dinosaurs in some capacity. Category:Aptian Stage Category:Albian Stage, Category:Albian Stage has 128, 100 and 107 respectively while Category:Callovian Stage only has 21 and many of the Early Triassic stages have less than 10 so there is high variance. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
@Tisquesusa: I assume you have an opinion on this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Ha, thanks for the ping. I was just finishing the expansion (or essentially creating the article as those microstubs have 0 relevant info in them) the presently quite curiously named Corona Formation. I completely agree those long tables are redundant, hence why I linked the Category:Callovian life to the Callovian article. Lists are useful for mostly static or little dynamic data, while categories are automatically updated, if maintained (a task I have taken up over the years) properly.
I fully agree with Hemiauchenia that the definitions, redefinitions, age constraints and defining features of each stage are the exact information a reader would look for in such articles and that information is missing in most cases now. I have on my to-do list some defining formations to expand or even create, but I don't do stubs, so it takes some time. Not every article will be like Honda Group, the defining group for the SALMA Laventan, but the defining formations do deserve proper articles. The Callovian is only 2.6 Ma short, so that partly explains the lower count of articles related to that stage, and also many articles have not been categorized fully or even added, so it will grow over time, see the Category:Gzhelian that now just has 3 formations, but that is because I haven't tackled the Carboniferous in detail.
The recent expansions of the stage articles with the long tables has been problematic, as quite some entries of those tables were based on outdated information. I managed to comment out a few, but it is in general not a very well-rewarding task. Also because you'd have to update yet another table with newly described genera of mostly dinosaurs, but also other flora and fauna.
I disagree however that not every formation is notable. We have Iranian villages with 17 inhabitants (and 42 goats) which warrant an article (apparently), and -and that is the main reason for notability and inclusion- even non-fossiliferous strata are notable to complete the stratigraphy of (more) notable fossiliferous units. Also they represent stages in the basin history, further detailing how each basin evolved and what deposits and environments are related to that. See for instance the extensive work done on the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin or the many articles about British geology, most of which are not fossiliferous or even important in North Sea petroleum geology. Tisquesusa (talk) 02:53, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with this. Formation rank seems the right place to put the cutoff for notability, with rare exceptions for things like Petrified Forest Member (which are often raised to formation rank locally.) --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:29, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree that the taxon lists in age/stage articles are redundant, can only be incomplete and very difficult to maintain; their scope is just too big. On the other hand, taxon lists in formation articles can be quite useful (not sure if they need to be that bulky with a picture for every entry). It would be ideal, however, to separate these lists out into dedicated sub-articles (example: Paleobiota of the Morrison Formation) and focus on actual content in the formation article itself. I think that every formation is relevant once there is information about it, but if its only a few sentences they might also be covered in an overview article about some larger litostratigraphic unit. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:20, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree that taxa lists are fine in formation articles, where they are relevant. My point about geological formations is not that they aren't notable or interesting or worthy of articles in their own right, it's simply that there isn't an incentive for a significant number of users to create or expand articles about them due to the general obscurity of individual formations in comparison to basins. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:05, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I might add that, for non-specialists coming into this area - actually, for many a specialist too! - what can be daunting are the sheer number of different names which will be encountered in printed literature and maps published over decades as well these days as on the web, and so many of them would seem at first glance to be in conflict or overlap; that's to say there will be different names for the same or a similar stretch of time. Now, we may understand why that is; as knowledge progresses, so the necessity of bundling up periods of time and rocks units in different ways (after all the same argument applies to formation/groups etc) becomes clear. One of our tasks should be to help the uninitiated to navigate their way through this bewildering sea of names. Oh, and I'd agree about keeping taxon lists short. cheers Geopersona (talk) 15:31, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree about the bewildering number of (often conflicting) names, the Neocomian is a classic example of this. Cambrian Stage 2, 3 and 4 still remain unnamed, and often the widespread use of the placeholder names creates confusion when they are replaced. For example, very few new papers use the now official Chibanian as opposed to the previously provisional and widely understood "Middle Pleistocene" (~800-100 kya), not to mention those contentious Holocene subdivisions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
@Tisquesusa: How do we deal with significant units that are unnamed? For example we have another Abyssal stub, article Unit S3U1 from Wieshampel again, which according to this paper represents a unit of an unnamed formation in Laño quarry in Basque Country, probably Late Campanian to early Maastrichtian in age. In my opinion, articles should generally be at the formation level, with no articles for members unless the member is particularly notable for some reason, like being a lagerstatte, I think the Waukesha Biota article, which covers a particular 12cm thick bed in the Brandon Bridge Formation qualifies for this. In my experience I have found French stratigraphy particularly difficult, as France seems to lack any kind of stratigraphic database outside of (often inaccessible) borehole logs, and many significant units, particularly in the Aquitaine Basin, lack any kind of real formal name. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:59, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad this issue has been brought up. I also have concerns about the recent effort by several editors (namely Draco ignoramus sophomoricus and GleisReis) to add extensive taxa lists to articles on geological stages. I believe that the age info for taxa are often sourced directly from the "temporal range" section of taxoboxes in other Wikipedia articles. The problem I see is that there is not much effort to confirm or clarify the dating of the taxa in question. Relating to some debates in Triassic biostratigraphy, if one paleontologist dates a fossil assemblage as Carnian based on conchostracans and another dates it to Norian based on magnetostratigraphy, should its taxa be on the Norian or Carnian page? Simply trusting Wikipedia to have accurate age ranges (often sourced simply from fossilworks or entirely unsourced) not only has the potential to be wrong, but is also circular reasoning in itself. I have several solutions in mind. One is to delete the taxon lists entirely, though I don't want to resort to this option since the editors mentioned above have spent a lot of time and effort in creating them. Another option is to give the lists their own articles. These articles will need to be properly sourced, maintained and refined constantly, but it would at least clean up clutter on the main pages of the geological units. Part of the solution may involve more emphasis on the geological formations used to justify the dating of the taxa. Some marine strata (and their corresponding taxa) can be safely assigned to a stage based on index fossils, but for terrestrial strata a nuanced discussion of potential age dating may be necessary. That's my main issue with the process of creating taxon lists: lack of nuance when linking taxa to a temporal stage. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 22:04, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to place the blame squarely on those two editors, the issue of faunal lists goes way back. You can see in this 2007 version of the Barremian article that the faunal lists were already an issue, originally they started with Abyssal adding a list of Ammonite genera, which seems on the face of it more reasonable than the current list, though they weren't labelled as index taxa or anything. It was the subsequent addition of the terrestrial vert taxa by Dysmorodrepanis later in 2007 Table formatting for some of the taxa was added by the end of 2008, with it being mostly complete by the beginning of 2010. It's not really fair to criticize them when they are only attempting to make more comprehensive the longstanding taxa lists and subsequent tables have existed unchallenged for over a decade. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
It's not my intent to antagonize those two editors, since they were only sustaining a process which has been going on for years. They just stand out more to me because I have been working on Triassic articles recently. I don't want to sound rude, especially considering that they have acted quite amicable whenever we interact. By tagging them, I hope to bring them here so that they can provide their own take on the situation. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 23:52, 6 July 2020 (UTC
Fair enough, I admit that recently I got too confident citing fossilworks, thinking it was considered proper academic source, instead of checking the taxa's articles' cited papers. If you insist on deleting content please allow me a week to at least download the pages for personal use. --Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 01:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree, pinging people in a discussion like this when you think their edits are problematic is always awkward, especially when they're polite. I just wanted to provide context to the broader discussion that these are longstanding issues with the articles rather than a recent problem. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I'd go with Fanboyphilosopher's suggestion of separate articles - title them appropriately, link them to the original and that way, none of the effort of various editors is wasted. The info is there for anyone to view and further contribute to, and yes, some of it may require further checking and referencing, and the age/stage articles will become more readable - perhaps just have 'highlights' of the taxa within them. cheers Geopersona (talk) 05:52, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I understand your concerns about the long taxa tables. I do think it's nice though to have faunal overviews for each age (even when incomplete) and that users can click through the ages and see the faunal changes over time. The lack of sources for the age assignments is an issue and should be addressed. Fossilworks may be a good start but we should try to get the relevant information from the literature. Citing fossilworks as a preliminary source is ok in my opinion, but should be checked and updated in the future. I agree that probably the best solution would be to create separate pages for taxon overviews for each age, where formation names are provided with references. Such pages currently exist, although in a different format, as categories (e.g. Category:Induan life), which may become redundant then? Should they be merged? GleisReis (talk) 08:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Whooowhoohoo... separate articles? Categories "becoming redundant"? WTF is going on here. The WORST idea is to go for separate articles (=lists) because it is yet another bunch of things to keep up to date. Then you have quite some genera that span multiple stages so you create more and more inconsistencies. The Categories are first, not some list that will never satisfy everybody. "Categories redundant"? They are the backbone of any encyclopedia.
I recommend to think first and then act. This is leading nowhere. Fossilworks is a good start, but is a database and thus can be faulty, which it is in some cases. Those individual cases may have been solved in the wiki articles or even not. Or new research comes in and reclassifies the formation to another stage.
The lists as they are now are also completely arbitrary. Why are some groups listed and others completely absent? I suggest drop the lists in your user space (they shoah'd removed the excellent Prehistory of... portals for no reason whatsoever, so portals are a dead end) and focus on that what the stage defines, ammonites, conodonts, mammals, etc. Tisquesusa (talk) 15:02, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Tisquesusa that the lists are unnecessary clutter and should be removed to userspace rather than simply being made separate articles. A list of all animals from a particular age/stage, is as Jens, Tisquesusa and Fanboyphilosopher have mentioned, is impossible to maintain both due to the extraordinarily broad scope and also that the dates for terrestrial formations are also uncertain and change, which leads to a lot of headaches. The stage article should generally only include relevant index fossils like conodonts, ammonites, forams etc. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry if there was any misunderstanding. All I said was that a the category list and a separate page with tables would have the essentially the same content (hence a redundancy in content). But I'm new to wikipedia and maybe the idea of merging them into one page for each age makes no sense. I'll let the silverbacks decide. GleisReis (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
GleisReis, I understand that understood you wrong. Good you are enthusiastic about the taxa and stages, I am too. The thing with the taxa is that most of them are found in formations, so there the taxa lists make sense. There may be some from unknown localities or from unnamed formations (quarries etc.). But they are, when they are articles, inside the categories. Without images though. That's also why the portals were ideal to collect information and present them nicely in a different structure, but for some ridiculous reason only the Cretaceous portal remained while all the others were deleted by some triggerhappy admin. Another option would be an article like South Polar region of the Cretaceous, that didn't make it to GA, but still is a comprehensive overview of different taxa restricted to a certain area and timeframe. Yewtharaptor is busy expanding the Toarcian and other Jurassic formations with lots of taxa too, so it's great to see there is an effort to improve and expand the geologic and paleontologic articles, building on top of the extensive work done by Hemiauchenia and myself to destub many articles about formations with the additions of taxa. If you like to create new articles on taxa, the "year in paleontology" lists have quite some red links too. But the focus for the stages I think are the defining fossils, the history of definition, absolute age datings on zircons or other methods which are of interest to the specific stage and global events and paleoclimate, tectonics and possible impact craters. Maybe at a family level taxa could be included, then with a newly described genus it is just a matter of adding a number count, something like "Campanian life -> Spinosauridae (4 genera)" or so. Tisquesusa (talk) 19:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
@GleisReis - all editors who are here to improve Wikipedia are welcome here, whether new or old. Don't be put off if sometimes editors with particular perspectives express themselves strongly. Changes are ideally arrived at through consensus after reasoned discussion between those with different views and experience. cheers Geopersona (talk) 19:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
It's fine, I don't think the content you've added is any worse than the articles in Category:Lists of prehistoric life in the United States, Category:Prehistoric life of North America and uncategorised varations by Abyssal which I also think are an issue for the same reason. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree, those lists are not very useful. Again, that's why the portal Portal:Prehistory of North America should not have been deleted/moved, there it is possible and useful to include taxa per continent, with even the option to split them per time period, as India used to be Gondwana for a long time and thus the Triassic fossils from there are not really "Asian". There is just so much to do still (which is great!), I have some important formations on my list of things to do, and there are many stubs left as well. South America, Africa, Antarctica and Australia I have mostly done, with some excursions into Asia and Europe, but Europe and North America have lots of stubs still untouched, so not giving much information ("Cretaceous" or even "Mesozoic" at times does not give much information due to the length of these periods). The comment by Fanboyphilosopher about magnetostrat vs biostrat is very interesting and important too, a nice focus for expansion in that area. Ideally we shouldn't have stubs but just starts and higher level articles, but that will take a while to realize. But we're getting there in the end, it's good we discuss these issues now and many editors participate, so it is on quite some radars to improve, expand and present the existing information out there in nice articles or useful lists! Tisquesusa (talk) 19:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Regarding biostratigraphy v magnetostrat, the latter should be preferred, at least for stuff like land mammal ages where aging based on the presence of certain taxa can effectively become circular reasoning if the the taxa do not have a uniform temporo-spatial distribution (i.e. they are diachronous). Do you think it's worth splitting out the Indian subcontinent formation articles prior to the Cenozoic from the Category:Mesozoic Erathem of Asia into separate categories like Category:Cretaceous Series of the Indian subcontinent? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with your position the biostrat vs magnetostrat situation, and was only giving it as an example. In fact I'm (very slowly) working on an article showing both the content and criticisms of a certain Triassic tetrapod biochronology system. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 02:01, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Biolith

Hello! I'm wandering through the orphaned articles and I came across biolith, which is a sad, sad little sub-stub. Should it be a standalone article, or should it be merged somewhere? Or is it outdated and in need of deletion? I tried some googling but didn't come up with much that seemed conclusive. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:53, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Google Scholar has a few hits. I am not sure whether it can be expanded from there. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:25, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
It's a very sad stub, a very sad stub indeed. The only reason for keeping it would be if removing it created redlinks elsewhere, but you say it's orphaned. I'd say delete.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:14, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
looks more like a textbook definition than an actual article --Licks-rocks (talk) 17:22, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes, and the term seems practically unused in actual geology literature. It's pretty ill-defined,for one thing: Is a body fossil a biolith? How about a trace fossil? Banded iron formation? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:44, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
I've heard the term "bio" used as part of the Folk classification, otherwise I've never seen it used, perhaps redirect it to there? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:41, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. I'd say be bold. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:44, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Biolith has an entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica/ however I agree that the term is rare in the literature. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:55, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
I tend to look on redirects as a dare to editors to write a decent article, if they think it's warranted. YMMV. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:07, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
An alternative solution would be to make it a WP:Soft redirect to wiktionary:biolith. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:16, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Better still. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:13, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Done! Thanks for the help. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:25, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
:thumbsup: --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:19, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Mount Takahe at FAC

I just reviewed Mount Takahe, which is at FAC at the moment; neither I nor the other reviewer there has any background in geology. Since the FAC is short of reviews I thought I'd drop a note here to see if anyone is interested in taking a look at it from a subject-matter expert point of view. Also pinging Jo-Jo Eumerus, the nominator and primary author, to let them know about this note. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:29, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

just had a quick look at it - the article looks to have been promoted to featured article - but the geological composition section needs a rewrite by someone good at describing magma types - I think I could improve it, but not feeling 100% that I'd get it perfect for featured article level - so ideally someone who knows how to tidy up this sentence

The magmas appear to have formed through fractional crystallization at varying pressures,[63] and ultimately came from the lithosphere at 80–90-kilometre (50–56 mi) depth,[64] that was affected by subduction processes[65] over 85 million years ago.[14]

which looks like a bit of a car crash to my eyes. EdwardLane (talk) 10:48, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Definition of "Glutenite"

"Glutenite" appears to be a regional geological term that is only used by Chinese geologists, both in reference to a specifc facies and as a type of reservoir. It's not an obscure term by any means, with around 4,200 hits on Google Scholar. However none of the papers that use the term that I've seen actually specifically defines it. This paper states that: "Glutenites, especially those block-like massive deposits in rift basins, consist of sandstones and conglomerates, commonly include alluvial fan, fan delta, nearshore subaqueous fan and sublacustrine fan." but this definition is still lacking, as it doesn't make sense of why Glutenite would be referenced as a specific facies as separate from sandstone and conglomerate. Does anyone have a more specific definition of the term? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:57, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I live on top of the Rio Grande rift, and I've never heard the term before, even though "sandstones and conglomerates, commonly include alluvial fan, fan delta, nearshore subaqueous fan and sublacustrine fan" 'r' us. But then I'm actually an astronomer by training, a computational physicist by vocation, and a geologist only by avid avocation. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:53, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
When I meant "not obscure" I meant that it has wide usage as a regional geological term, even through it is unfamiliar to western geologists. Unlike the above discussion of Biolith, where the term does appear to be infrequently used, "Glutenite" is widely used in refence to Chinese geological formations in most papers I have read by Chinese authors. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:10, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
After hunting around for a while, I found this paper, which defines "glutenite" as "sandy conglomerate", but I have no idea if that is a general definition or just what it means in a specific area. Mikenorton (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, that at least is concrete. (So to speak.) I assume by "sandy" it's meant that the matrix between clasts is sandy. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:51, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
That's my assumption also, although whether that's a sandstone with sparse granule to larger clasts or more of a sandstone matrix supported conglomerate it's hard to know. I presume, and this is obviously just a guess, that there is a specific term in Chinese that someone translated to English as "glutenite" several decades ago based on an etymology that we can only guess at, although something to do with "glue" seems likely. Mikenorton (talk) 10:00, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
So far as I can tell, the term is almost exclusively used by Chinese petroleum geologists, and it seems to appear out of the blue at around 2002. Based on context and cross-references, it does seem to be a lithology composed of of sand and gravel. I suspect an idiosyncratic translation of a term in Mandarin. Gluten in English refers to the proteins in cereal grains, which suggests a different etymology, referring to the granular texture of the rock. But we're guessing and I haven't found any further enlightenment with either Google or Google Scholar.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:28, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, I can go back a little bit further in time to 1800, to "Petralogy: A Treatise on Rocks, Volume 1" (sic) by John Pinkerton. Reading the section on "Siderous Glutenite" (Page 135), it's clear that he is using "glutenite" as a general term to cover all rocks with large clasts in a finer-grained matrix. He divides "bricias" (sic) from "pudding stones" (or breccias from conglomerates as we would now say). How this term, which was hardly then used in the scientific literature for the best part of 180 years, resurfaced in China in 1978 (as far back as I can trace it) it's difficult to know. Mikenorton (talk) 15:00, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I've managed to find some papers that contain thin sections and rock samples. To me it looks like a well cemented conglomerate with angular clasts. Given the evidence that has previously been presented, does anyone disagree with a Glutenite --> Conglomerate (geology) redirect?. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:37, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

No objection.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:01, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
It's what I would call a "breccio-conglomerate", but that's covered in that article so I've no objection either. Mikenorton (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Done. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
I was going to say it probably derives from the word agglutinate (wiktionary says that's from latin adglutinare (“to glue or cement to a thing”)) - my memory was going to suggest it covered conglomerates and breccias - so thumbs up from me EdwardLane (talk) 10:57, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Marketing?

Curious whether there's any chance [[1]] is in good faith. I suspect a marketing edit. Suggestions on how to deal with it? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kent G. Budge: Kevmin already undid the edit. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:24, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Good. Am I wrong to see this as a marketing edit? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:28, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Possibly its with good faith, but it still is outside the scope of wikipedia.--Kevmin § 20:48, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Definitely outside the scope, and no question about reverting; but what the motivation is (good faith or not) is important in knowing how to caution the new editor without biting the newbie. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
I suspect it might've been good faith, as there was no link or anything that would lead you to a product. --Licks-rocks (talk) 10:49, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I have added a welcome template and a short explanation as to why their edit was reverted on their user talk page. That should probably be enough for now. --Licks-rocks (talk) 11:04, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Geological formation

Friends, please take a look at this article. I've taken a stab at bringing better coherence and completeness to it. Still needs some work, I think. Further discussion at the talk page. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Article class

So I've run into a couple of articles that actually look quite good but are still rated Start-quality. My understanding is that any editor can change the rating to as high as B-class if warranted. Is that correct? Example: Conglomerate (geology) really looks better than Start class to me.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:06, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Yep, it's only GA and FA that need a thorough review — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hemiauchenia (talk • contribs)
Aye. Granted, they are not necessary and if you ask me we ought to scrap these ratings for this WikiProject, at least. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:45, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I find them useful as a guide to which articles need serious work. For example, I saw that banded iron formation was high-importance but start-quality and went to town on it (hope you like the results.) But this is useful only if the ratings are kept up to date. So I'll be bold in rerating articles I think deserve it.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Updating Classification of silicate minerals article

Hello geology people! I'm actually here from Typo Team because Classification of silicate minerals ended up on the list of articles with detected typos since it had chemical formulas that weren't in templates. I was going through it to add Template:Chem2 around all the formulas, but then I found some that didn't match the July 2020 IMA master list and thought I should update them, but I know next to nothing about geology and only a little about chemistry. Anyway, I've been replacing the formulas with the ones listed on the master list and organizing it based on the New Dana Classification (using webmineral.com's list). Is there any reason I shouldn't update all the chemical formulas to the current ones? Are the websites I'm using accurate? And finally, what do I do about the minerals added since 1997 that don't have a place in the classification? If anyone else has a better idea about how to fix the article, I won't mess with it, but I'd be happy to fix it as long as my edits are making it better. Thank you! TuskDeer (talk) 23:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

FAR of Earth

I have nominated Earth for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 18:03, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

First list of most viewed geology articles released.

After I requested that this be added a few weeks ago, we now have a list of the 1,000 most viewed geology articles in the last month, the link is here. Unsuprisingly, Earth is #1, but I'm suprised that the Chelyabinsk meteor article is still getting over 1,000 views per day nearly 8 years later. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The actual average is more like 600-1,000, still impressive though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for this list. I realize rank and importance are quite arbitrary, but hits is not; and this suggest low-hanging fruit for article improvement. Though, what's with all the hits on Horseshoe Bend (Arizona)? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
It seems like a popular tourist destination, the numbers seem to have been relatively constant (>300 views per day) over the last 5 years per pageviews analysis. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:48, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Indian subcontinent

A complex RfC is going on, after a long bout of edit war. Uninvolved editors needed at the discussion. Aditya(talk • contribs) 06:43, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Volcaniclastics

Wikipedia currently has a (fairly decent; could use work) article on tuff, a (fairly decent; could use work) article on tephra, and an article on pyroclastic rock that I'm inclined to put some work into improving. I note, however, that Volcaniclastic is presently a redirect to Pyroclastic rock, which seems not quite right. As I understand it, having touched up my understanding from three or four textbooks just now, volcaniclastics is the broadest term, taking in any kind of rock composed predominantly of broken fragments of volcanic rock. (Fisher (1961) "Proposed clasification of volcaniclastic sediments and rocks. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull. 72, pp.1409-1414; cited by Fisher and Schmincke (1984), Pyroclastic Rocks) This would include everything from tuffs to cinder beds to debris flows, lahars, and fanglomerates whose provenance is a volcanic field. Pyroclastics are rock fragments produced directly by volcanic action and so would exclude many debris flows, lahars, and fanglomerates. Tuff is one form of consolidated pyroclastics; tephra is unconsolidated pyroclastics. This is pretty much how Fisher and Schmincke (1984) lay it out in their table on page 90.

Assuming that's the right hierarchy, it seems to me that volcaniclastics should be the "root" article for pyroclastic rock, tuff, and tephra, with tuff and tephra being subsets of pyroclastic rocks. That suggests the redirect of volcaniclastics to pyroclastics is not ideal. I'm thinking of breaking volcaniclastics out into its own article (I'm happy to do the work to give this a good start) and tweak the others to reflect the subsetting Volcaniclastics -> pyroclastics -> (tuff, tephra) just a bit better. But I thought I'd bounce that off y'all first to get your comments and suggestions. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Le Bas and Streckeisen (1991) unhelpfully don't even mention the term "volcaniclastic" in their IUGS systematics of igneous rocks. However, Vincent (2000) (Chapter 1 of "Volcaniclastic Rocks, from Magmas to Sediments") is based mainly on Cas & Wright (1987) (although also referring back to Fisher & Schmincke (1984)) and fits well with your understanding, which matches mine also. He divided things into primary and secondary volcaniclastic deposits, which makes sense to me. I can see most of the relevant parts of that chapter of the book on Google Books and it looks useful. A separate article for volcaniclastic rocks seems like a good way to go. Mikenorton (talk) 23:07, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

I've got a Draft:Volcaniclastics article up and slowly coming into focus, and y'all are welcome to jump in and contribute before I move this over the existing redirect. Unsurprisingly, there are some slight differences in how different experts define the stuff. @Mikenorton, I haven't looked at that chapter yet but will do so soon.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

List of supercontinents

Could someone with subject knowledge have a look at List of supercontinents? A certain amount of at least recent editing seems to be speculative and/or fiction, but I can't easily tell how much. Thanks. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not a subject area expert, but I don't think Zeelandia or Avalonia fit anyone's definition of a supercontinent. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
I've opened a discussion on the article's talk page. It would help if there was a single definition out there - currently it's either all of the continents, 75% of the continents, or less if the candidate meets some other criteria. I looked at the list yesterday and spent several hours going through many recent papers on exactly this subject. I think that we should use one of the published definitions and stick with it or, I suppose, we could have different lists for different criteria. We might list "supercratons" as well. Mikenorton (talk) 20:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
The most likely result of that discussion is a redirect of the list article to supercontinent, which has its own tabulated list. The next challenge is to go through that list and provide sources to fill the "citations" column that I added a few months ago. Mikenorton (talk) 08:00, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Correlation tables discussion

A conversation has been started at WP:Palaeontology regarding the tables that have been added to Golden Valley Formation and others. Comments are welcomed--Kevmin § 01:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Banded iron formation

Nominated for good article status. The review came back with a long list of tweaks, and I'm headed out of town Monday. I'll do what I can before then, but would appreciate anything any of the rest of you can do to help. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:28, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Multi-component gas analyzer system

I have attempted to expand this stub article and would like to request someone to reassess its rating. Brynnams (talk) 17:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I've bumped it to a C. I'm not comfortable bumping to a B simply because I don't know the subject area well enough to assess if anything important has been left out. But what is there seems well-written, well-organized, and properly sourced. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:26, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Morainic drift

Hello. Would someone kindly take a look at Morainic drift? It is a single lined, unsourced article which was edited (excluding maintenance edits) 14 years ago. Last maintenance, or any type of edit was eight years ago. Thanks a lot in advance. —usernamekiran (talk) 11:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Not a subject matter expert. But the only article I could dredge up in Google Scholar that mentioned morainic drift and was less than a century old defined it quite differently: https://sjg.lyellcollection.org/content/3/2/372.short I suspect an obsolete term for which Wikipedia doesn't need an article. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:18, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the response Kent. I know nothing about this field, but should we redirect it to Moraine? We should keep this discussion open for 3-4 days so more editors can weigh in. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:25, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
To amplify and agree with the comments so far, the Morainic drift article claims that the phenomenon is a movement process. I didn't find any sources to support such a claim, so I have my doubts that it even qualifies as obsolete. Nowadays, and in books from 130 years ago, "morainic drift" describes a substance: rock debris on and around glaciers; the process of movement of such material is now usually termed "moraine transport" or "debris transport". A redirect to Moraine seems appropriate. GeoWriter (talk) 16:43, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
This does not seem likely to be a controversial redirect. I'll proceed with it. It can be reverted if someone else comes along and points out something we've missed. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
+1 DanHobley (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

thanks everybody. See you guys around :) —usernamekiran (talk) 10:14, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Pluton -> Igneous intrusion

I've put up a proposal to move Pluton to Igneous intrusion, for the reasons given on the talk page there. Please comment there if you have an opinion on this. Thanks. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 06:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Grand Canyon proposal

Hi there, editors at your Wikiproject may be interesting in the related WikiProject Grand Canyon proposal, which you can see and support here! Kingsif (talk) 08:40, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Hoodoo (geology), Mushroom rock, and redirects

The Hoodoo (geology) article is a quite well-written article that is the target of some 11 redirects for various synonyms, including Tent rock. The Mushroom rock article is a not-so-well-written article that is the target for three variations on the name. Looking these over, looking over the (not numerous) books I have on hand that discuss pediment rocks and their ilk, and looking through some of the papers pulled up from Google Scholar, it seems that hoodoos distinguished from mushroom rocks mostly in that hoodoos form from erosion of resistant beds over nonresistant beds, whereas mushroom rocks form from erosion of more or less uniformly resistant beds by possibly different processes. However, there's a lot of overlap of terms and with the term "pedestal rock."

I wanted to get some feel for how y'all understand the distinction between the two. The hoodoo article I'm disinclined to touch much; it's a good article and about all I'd add is a short paragraph explaining the distinction from mushroom rocks -- assuming there really is one. The mushroom rock article needs to either be merged with hoodoo (if they are not really distinct concepts) or needs to clearly spell out the distinction and focus narrowly on mushroom rocks and not hoodoos. My tentative take is that they are distinct enough concepts (as I've just defined them) to justify two articles, but I could easily be persuaded otherwise.

FWIW, Oxford Dictionary of Geology and Earth Sciences defines hoodoos, tent rocks, and pedestal rocks separately, redirects "mushroon rock" to "pedestal rock", and defines pedestal rocks as products of wind- or water-driven erosion of uniform rock; tent rocks as products of erosion of resistant beds over soft beds; and hoodoos nearly the same as tent rocks. Not that ODGES is the last word, but just to illustrate the confusion I'm seeing here. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 04:22, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

good question - I don't know the difference (without the comments above I'd have been inclined to merge as I don't know the difference) but that's probably just my ignorance. I'm looking forward to learning the answer EdwardLane (talk) 13:40, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Input request to interested editors

Greetings,

is there anyone interested in commenting/reviewing Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Laguna del Maule (volcano)/archive2? After five weeks it has only two comments with explicit support/oppose. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:45, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll see if I can't take a good look at it this weekend. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:19, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

FAR climate change

I have nominated Climate change for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Femke Nijsse (talk) 22:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Cretaceous

Cretaceous is currently the most viewed Geological period article, getting around 1,400 views per day. There is currently an effort by WP:PALAEO to get Cretaceous to be the second featured geological period article after Paleocene. Obviously most of the Palaeontology-minded editors have no expertise in the Geology. In comparison to the equivalent section on the Paleocene article, the section is quite lacking, and some assistance to help get the section into shape would be appreciated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

The "Rock formations" section is overwhelmingly about Europe and needs to be substantially broadened. The "Paleogeography" section has too much on North America and contains several inaccurate statements, such as "Gondwana was still intact in the beginning of the Cretaceous" - "East Gondwana" broke away from "West Gondwana" during the middle to Late Jurassic. There is a great deal more to describe in either this, or perhaps a separate "Tectonics" section. Mikenorton (talk) 18:29, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
The "Geology" part of this article should include information on: The rifting and break-up of western Gondwana, the rifting and break-up of eastern Gondwana, the rifting and partial break-up of Laurasia. The orogenic belts along the western side of the Americas and the first stages of the Alpine Orogeny, and the emplacement of Neotethyan ophiolites. The formation of the Caribbean Plate needs to be in there too and then there are four or five Large Igneous Provinces, depending on whether or not you count the Deccan Traps as Cretaceous. Mikenorton (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Salt Flat

Currently salt flat redirects to a disambiguation page. However, the two main topics are salt pan and dry lake, which do not seem to be distinct concepts (or maybe salt flats are a kind of dry lake?), and the articles use many of the same examples. Can these articles be merged or at least clarified as to what the distinction is? Can salt flat redirect to salt pan instead of a disambiguation page? I do not have the background in this area to be confident what the right approach is here. Somatochlora (talk) 14:46, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Article reassessment request

Hi, I recently added a lot of information to the stub class article Biogenic Substance, and was wondering if I could please have a reassessment of its rating? Thank you --Wikiuser553 (talk) 01:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Tsunami-proof building

We could use some help building this short article. Bearian (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to replace geological period/epoch/era etc. templates with a unified infobox-like template

A few months ago I tried to expand the Template:Geological period to the epochs, and failed miserably, chiefly because there was little point in replacing the templates that were already there. However, I really do not like the ununified look of the geological timescale pages' templates in the top right-hand corner (example: Tonian vs. Paleocene). I wish to replace the existing template on all of these pages with an infobox-style template that would contain information such as: 

-image (map)
-image (life forms/reconstruction of how the time period looked)
-classification (period, epoch, era, stage/age, eon)
-upper bound defined by (is there a fossil or geological process that suddenly appears or disappears at this boundary? is it radiometrically defined (i.e the Orosirian)?)
-upper bound age (how old the upper boundary is)
-lower bound defined by
-lower bound age
-next period (what comes after the division of time being discussed?)
-previous period
-usage (regional? international? outdated? proposed? etc)
-coined by (who first used the term?)
-ratification date (for internationally recognized divisions of time as recognized by the international commission on stratigraphy OR by regional or governmental agencies, if and where applicable)
-timeline? (example:Template:Silurian graphical timeline)
-contained subdivisions (is the article subject about a period with epoch subdivisions? what are they?)

Using such a template would not only create a more unified look for these pages, but it would also encourage more information to be added that often times is not included on the pages in question (most subdivisions of the Cambrian, for example, don't have most of the info I've listed above anywhere on them) or that is hard to find on some pages. Benniboi01 (talk) 04:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, in principle. It would be great to see a prototype version: would you like to put one together? Do you need any help? — hike395 (talk) 07:05, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
I think this would be a really good idea too. It would be great to see a prototype, particularly to see how you plan to balance the display the difference between Precambrian and Phanerozoic time divisions (the latter having series/epoch and age/stage divisions).
For the image, Precambrian times might be a little difficult due to the disagreement around which model of some supercontinents is most agreed on.
I have been thinking about how to go about updating a lot of the Precambrian time division pages, particularly Neoproterozoic to make the pages more consistent overall. Current thoughts are having etymology (which most have in some form) and ratification sections to start off the pages and then fill in what info I can about things like general environment, palaeogeography, other notable events. Cryogenian is a pretty good example of what I'm thinking structure wise. Tonian needs work and Ediacaran could use some TLC. Jarred C Lloyd (talk) 10:28, 5 August 2020 (UTC)=
I also like the idea, though I know so little about writing templates (as opposed to using them) that I can't be much help except for suggesting what should be in the template. Your list so far sounds pretty good --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:15, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
I'll start working on a prototype. It may take me some time, but I think I can do it.Benniboi01 (talk) 21:55, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm looking forward to seeing a prototype. GeoWriter (talk) 12:02, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I've prepared a prototype. Check out my sandbox and testcases pages to take a look at how it's working. I've had a bit of trouble with getting the images to automatically become a specific size when you put them in the template, and I didn't know how to handle any of the hCard techy stuff. I think I've gotten almost everything else down though. I also figured out how to give the titles of specific ICS subdivisions colors that match their colors on the ICS time subdivision chart (linked here). This can be removed if its too obnoxious.Benniboi01 (talk) 00:35, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Side note: of the 3 examples on my testcases page, the Cambrian one is the most complete. Also, I did not add timeline functionality yet because I'm not sure if it would even be useful for this infobox or if it would fit in. Benniboi01 (talk) 00:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I would really like to see the subdivisions displayed as they presently are in geologic time period articles, with a vertical timeline with links. Would it be possible to do this with these templates? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Sure, I think that can be done. Benniboi01 (talk) 03:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

@Benniboi01: If you want images to display a certain way in an infobox, take a look at Module:InfoboxImage. For a simple example of using that module, take a look at Template:Infobox ecoregion. The empty infobox looks a little odd, with some overlapping items --- I can help debug when you've settled the code a bit. — hike395 (talk) 03:57, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for creating the template and examples. A very nice effort.
First, a general comment about stratigraphy. I want to remind contributors that a constant problem with geological units is the confusion that exists between time intervals and rock units. The infobox title has e.g. Cambrian Period (i.e. time unit) but the "Official subdivisions" parameter lists series and stages (i.e. rock unit). Phanerozoic stratigraphy is fundamentally about subdividing the Earth's rocks and e.g the fossils within those rocks (and correlating between different outcrops), and then secondarily assigning an age to those rock units. Rocks of the Cambrian System were formed during the Cambrian Period. Stratigraphy still works even if only the relative age of the rocks is known and their absolute age in years is unknown.
Here are my comments about the template:
* Title - should not include the type of subdivision - should be e.g. "Cambrian" not "Cambrian Period",
* Usage - if ratified by the ICS, it should be "Global" or "Worldwide", not "International" because regional divisions, which are not ratified by the ICS, are also often international.
* Internationally ratified in - should be "Ratification date", which is how it appears in the text box you included in this discussion on 05 August, but it is displayed as "Internationally ratified in" in your Cambrian example.
* Classification - should be replaced by two parameters "Rock unit:" e.g. System and "Time interval:" e.g. Period.
* Coined by - should be "First proposer".
* Between Lower boundary defined by and Upper boundary defined by, a new parameter "Stratotype" should be added.
* The section headings should be in sentence case.
These are my initial suggestions. I hope they are helpful and I'm happy to discuss further. GeoWriter (talk) 12:10, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
I have another suggestion. I suggest that there should be two map parameters instead of one. We should have map (paleogeographic) to show e.g. world map of land and sea areas during the time interval in question, and map (current outcrop) to show the present-day distribution of rocks that were formed during the time interval in question. GeoWriter (talk) 11:42, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
seems like an excellent idea to me. --Licks-rocks (talk) 14:55, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I've added pretty much everything I can think of at the moment to the template. take a look at my my sandbox and testcases pages to see if everything looks good so far.Benniboi01 (talk) 23:21, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
That really looks good. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:37, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
I'd like to tweak the template a little bit, to make it better with empty parameters, and maybe improve the layout of the big image. I'll experiment in my own sandbox. 17:36, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks great! I'd just make the "First proposer" with a small letter, not capital. Tisquesusa (talk) 20:01, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the proposal in User:Hike395/sandbox, now with testcases in User:Benniboi01/testcases, User:Hike395/testcases, and User:Hike395/testcases2. The changes I've made are:
  1. A scaling of 88% was previously applied to {{Geological timescale}}, which made the fonts in the geological timescale too small and violate the accessibility guidelines. For the timescale, I reset the font size to be the default for the Vector skin (14px), which makes the timescale more readable. It also made it wider than 20em, so I had to make the whole infobox 23em wide.
  2. To make the rest of the fonts look proportional to the timescale, I enlarged the fonts from 88% to 92%97%.
  3. To make the subheader work when no timestart is given, I if'fed the subheader to only display if timestart is given
  4. I used autoheaders to vastly simplify the header logic.
  5. There were many uses of #if that were not necessary, so I removed them to simplify the template.
@Benniboi01, Kent G. Budge, and Tisquesusa: (and other editors): what do you think? — hike395 (talk) 22:29, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm old enough to appreciate the larger font. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Me too. After your comment, I decided to enlarge the main infobox fonts even larger (to 97% of the default infobox scale, which is already quite small). — hike395 (talk) 23:37, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Here's a diff, if it helps. — hike395 (talk) 00:34, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
I like the latest version with the larger font. Thanks for including my suggestions for additional fields and text changes. A few comments about the latest versions: (1) I'm not very familiar with infobox coding syntax but it looks as if an attempt has been made to display the correct planetary timeline graphic for whichever celestial body, but it does not appear to be working correctly because the timeline displayed in the Nectatian example (in User:Benniboi01/testcases) shows "Celestial body: Earth's Moon" but it displays the Earth's graphical timeline, not the Moon's. It should display the Moon's timeline (as seen in the Nectarian article) in this case. Or is the syntax correct but it has merely not been triggered due to missing input data? (2) The field name Synonymous name(s) should be changed to Synonym(s). GeoWriter (talk) 12:30, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
I like what you've done @Hike395:. I'm gonna take what you've got and apply it to my sandbox. I'll fix the lunar timeline stuff and the synonyms and also add a couple new things.Benniboi01 (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Is this template good to go now? Should we start applying it to appropriate articles? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:48, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Sorry I haven't said anything for the past few weeks, I'm getting pretty busy with school and all. I think it's probably ready to be implemented. When we start using it, can we leave the template unprotected to allow for edits in case I forgot to add something/we want to add something? Also, what should it be called? Benniboi01 (talk) 15:04, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
I made some minor changes to the template on my sandbox page. I'm pretty sure it's ready to go @Kent G. Budge, Tisquesusa, and Hike395:.136.61.217.54 (talk) 17:24, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
@Benniboi01: Overall, it looks good. One suggestion: can we put underscores "_" in the parameter names, instead of running the words together? I find parameters like |lowergsspacceptdate= hard to read and type. Thanks! — hike395 (talk) 14:30, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I'll second that, though it's not a deal-breaker for me. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:24, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I'll fix up the variables. Does the name Template:Infobox geologic time sound good? Also, I think I might remove the title color feature and replacing it with a border color feature or something... I'm worried that feature will violate accessibility guidelines somehow.Benniboi01 (talk) 16:56, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@Benniboi01: Can I suggest Template:Infobox geological timespan or Template:Infobox geologic timespan ? Time implies one point in time, while timespan implies an interval. Or maybe Template:Infobox geologic interval? — hike395 (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Whichever we decide, note you should put it into the tracking category in the code that I added at the bottom to check parameters. — hike395 (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kent G. Budge and Hike395: I think Template:Infobox geologic timespan would be good. I'll make the needed changes. After I do that do you guys think I can move the page to the new template page? I can handle documentation. Benniboi01 (talk) 15:55, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
I think you should go ahead and make the template... thanks for doing all of this work! — hike395 (talk) 05:47, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
No problem, thank you all so much for the help!Benniboi01 (talk) 18:27, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to bring a kind-of dead conversation back to life @Kent G. Budge and Hike395:, but I feel like this needs some input. Can I/should I remove the upper GSSP parameters or no? It feels kind of redundant to use, and most of the time, time spans are said to have a single GSSP, not multiple, and this may be confusing for newer readers.Benniboi01 (talk) 19:14, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
I haven't a strong preference. There's something to be said for pinning both ends of the interval, but avoiding confusion is also a laudable goal.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:27, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
I think keeping both boundaries is good. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:54, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
I can see the merit of preserving both boundary definitions, but it also makes the template a bit longer than it may need to be. I think it might be a decent idea to just remove the "upper gssp" variables, while keeping the upper definition variable, if that makes sense/is okay. Benniboi01 (talk) 16:17, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I have created Native state (metallurgy) and Talk:Native state (metallurgy) (do look at my comment on the talk page). It is a stub article. It is also an orphan except from a hatnote link. I don't know which other articles should link to it, so there's a task for those who do know. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

My first thought is that this page is redundant with Native element mineral. A lot depends on where you plan to take this article; if the term has a special meaning in industrial metallurgy, distinct from its mineralogical meaning, then perhaps a separate page is okay. But that difference needs to be emphasized even in a stub. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:34, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
I figured it might be meaning Ore, but I've got no strong feelings on it EdwardLane (talk) 18:48, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Carpolite

Hi. The article Petrogenetic grid mentions "Carpolite", which links to a disambiguation page. Neither of the two entries on that disambiguation page make sense in the context of the article, I think. It seems that this carpolite is supposed to be a (type of) mineral, but I can't find anything about this online. Could someone take a look at it? Thanks! Lennart97 (talk) 16:37, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

My guess is that this is a misspelling of Carpholite. If this seems a good guess to others here, I'll make the change later today. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Carpolite is definitely wrong. Carpholite is definitely correct - it is in the diagram that the text is describing. I found something else in the same paragraph that should be changed, so I've made the correction for carpholite. GeoWriter (talk) 15:18, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Kent G. Budge and GeoWriter: Thank you both for your input and fixing the issue! Lennart97 (talk) 15:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

International Year of Caves and Karst 2021

I've posted this at the Caves WikiProject too: I see that we have now entered International Year of Caves and Karst, a collaborative initiative involving a host of interested parties - is there any interest on any group or individual's part on Wikipedia to play a role by improving coverage of these topics during 2021? cheers Geopersona (talk) 11:49, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Bowen's decarbonization series

I've been working over the Limestone article, and had occasion to mention Bowen's decarbonization series, which describes the sequence of distinctive minerals that form during increasingly intense metamorphism of carbonate rock. I am reluctant to place a full discussion of this in Limestone since that article is now already rather lengthy and it's tangential. (I mention it there in a brief paragraph distinguishing dense limestone described as "marble" from true marble.) Alternatives I see are: Put it in the Marble article; add it as a subsection in Bowen's reaction series; or make it its own stub article. Any preferences? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:25, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Which source(s) are you using for this? A Google search gave me only one hit for "decarbonization series" in a metamorphic context, dating from 58 years ago. I've studied my fair share of metamorphosed limestones and I don't recall ever coming across the mineral change sequence described explicitly as "Bowen's decarbonization series", so I question its notability. If notability can be established, I suppose it could be included in the Marble article. I think it could only be included in the Bowen's reaction series article if it were put in a new "See also" section because that article is for minerals crystallising from cooling magmas, not solid-state mineral transformations in sedimentary or metamorphic rocks. GeoWriter (talk) 16:15, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree, I have never heard of the term in my searchings of the limestone related literature. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:32, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
The series is described in moderate detail in Blatt, Harvey; Tracy, Robert J. (1996). Petrology : igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic (2nd ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman. ISBN 0716724383., in their chapter on metamorphism of calcarous rocks. The specific claim is that Bowen's 1940 paper on this topic is a classic, and that the sequence of minerals formed as metamorphic grade increases "has become known as Bowen's Decarbonation Series". Google Scholar turns up a couple of pages of hits on the term, but, yeah ... they all seem to be older papers, pre-1980. And no other book in my (admittedly far from comprehensive) personal library mentions it by this name. So perhaps the term has fallen into disuse and Blatt and Tracy are being a bit idiosyncratic in using it as recently as 1996. I think the right thing is to avoid mentioning it in Limestone (I confess this was a bit of a name drop anyway) and revisit it if I ever get round to working on the Marble article. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:41, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser

Sandbox Organiser

A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful, especially if you create new articles. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:27, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Basal portion

Ciolo (Apulia)#Geology states Ciolo is mostly formed by a basal portion[disambiguation needed], wich includes limestones and bioclastic limestones..., where 'basal portion' simply links to the disambiguation page basal. What does this "basal portion" mean (if it means anything at all)? Lennart97 (talk) 16:17, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Basal in this context likely means the lower part of the stratigraphic succession, but the entire geology section seems like it was either badly translated or by someone who can't speak English so its hard to put into context where "basal" would fit in the sentence. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:36, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
@Hemiauchenia: Thanks for the reply. The best I can do for now is to remove the unhelpful link to basal and slap a Template:Clarify on it, which I'll do. Lennart97 (talk) 12:05, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Lava and magma

I can't seem to stop dropping grenades. Blame it on the COVID keeping me at home with time on my hands to fuss over Wikipedia.

Some time back I worked over the Lava article, making sure everything was properly sourced and expanding some on the chemical and physical range of properties of lavas. I'm now looking at Magma. To give some perspective, the article TOC for Lava is: 

1	Properties of lava
1.1	Composition
1.2	Rheology
1.3	Thermal
2	Lava morphology
3	Lava landforms
4	Lava fountains
5	Hazards
6	Towns destroyed by lava flows
7	Towns damaged by lava flows
8	Towns destroyed by tephra

while that for Magma is 

1	Physical and chemical properties of magma
1.1	Temperature
1.2	Density
1.3	Composition
2	Origins of magma by partial melting
3	Evolution of magmas
4	Migration and solidification of magmas
5	Magma usage for energy production

I've simplified these a bit. The relevant point is that most of each article is unique to that article, and the division between articles makes a lot of sense -- but the sections on properties of lava/magma are almost a complete overlap. It would be nice to find an elegant way to only have to write this information once, but off-hand I don't know what the best approach would be.

I do notice that almost everything in Lava that does not overlap would apply as well to Lava flow -- the latter is currently a redirect to Lava. If we moved Lava to Lava flow, the properties section of Lava flow could be reduced to little more than "Lava is magma that has reached the surface and degassed" with either a Main or See Also pointing the reader to the Magma article (or the Properties section of Magma). Another possibility may be to use template:Excerpt to pull that section from Magma directly into Lava, but I haven't any experience with that.

Would appreciate your thoughts. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Some additional data (which I really ought to have looked up to begin with):
Magma gets 25,293 page hits per month and has 6 redirects to it.
Lava gets 40,540 page hits per month and has 30 redirects to it.
Lava flow, which is a redirect to Lava, gets 740 page hits per month and has no redirects. (The latter is kind of meaningless; there are bots that automatically reduce double redirects.)
While moving Lava to Lava flow and replacing the properties section with a link to Magmas seems like an elegant solution, the much higher volume of traffic to Lava over Lava flow makes that hard to recommend. I note that Melt (geology) is a redirect to Magma, and it's tempting to put all the "Properties" in a new article by that name that is linked by Lava and Magma. However, that seems a bit awkward.
But to add one more monkey to the circus: Volcano (82,848 hits/month, 31 redirects) also has a somewhat briefer section on properties of melts that is highly redundant with the discussions in Lava and Magma. So I think we would really benefit from a central discussion of melt composition and properties that can be referenced by all three articles. My leanings at present are to put that in Magma and link it from the other two, but I'm open to either a separate article (Melt (geology), perhaps) that can be referenced or to experimenting with the Template:Extract functionality.
The advantage of Template:Extract is that I think there are some Wikistatistics showing that readers don't follow links very often. The discussion of melt composition and properties is a pretty key element of all three topics and a strong case can be made that it should be integral to their articles.
Apologies for thinking aloud at y'all. This seems like the right place for it, though. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:40, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I think moving Lava to Lava flow would create a problem because not all lava forms lava flows; much lava forms pyroclastic material, e.g. ash fall. GeoWriter (talk) 19:26, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Part of the problem is that the distinction between "magma" and "lava" is slightly artificial. "Lava is degassed magma that has reached the surface" is the best I can come up with. And maybe even the "degassed" part is off, since magma begins degassing well below the surface and the process does not complete until the stuff is fully depressurized above ground. The two geologic dictionaries I have in my library seem to boil the difference down to the word "extrusive". But we're not going to settle that issue at Wikipedia.
The hit count alone argues against moving Lava, since Wikipedia should put its targets where the readers are aiming. I am about 90% convinced, though, that the central discussion of melt properties and composition should go into Magma and other articles should reference it in some way. In any case, copying the best of the Lava version of this discussion to Magma does no harm, is probably an improvement, and is a good basis for whatever the next step is. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:48, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Much as the programmer inside me is screaming, I don't hate the idea of simply duplicated text. It is more practical for users as discussed above, and if it diverges a bit, so be it... Good ideas can be copied from one to the other at a later date, if anyone is highly motivated.DanHobley (talk) 09:31, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

FAR for Geology of the Death Valley area

I have nominated Geology of the Death Valley area for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. FemkeMilene (talk) 08:13, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Greenhouse gas emissions by Turkey

Hello,

I hope I have not been too presumptuous in removing your project from the talk page of the article. If this is wrong please could you explain on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_Turkey/archive1 how I can improve the article re geology. For example if you are aware of future expansion of Batı Raman oil field. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:04, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Mount St. Helens for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm Talk 04:07, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Springstone

I've recently created the article Springstone. Sources differ as to whether this is a form of chlorite or serpentinite mineral. I've gone with chlorite, since the sources giving this include print works, not just auction sites, and because other sources describe areas which have deposits of both springstone and serpentinite, suggesting the two are distinct. However, I'd greatly appreciate input from editors with expertise in this field who can help ensure to get this right. -- The Anome (talk) 13:49, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I've never heard of the substance before, but then there's a lot I've never heard of. It's not mentioned in either of my geologic dictionaries. The only mentions that Google Scholar dredges up are to its use by Zimbabwean sculptors, and these are not particularly helpful in identifying it. I do note that chlorite and serpentine are both greenschist facies minerals, meaning that they can appear together in the same rock, so perhaps the answer to "Is springstone serpentinite or chlorite?" is "Yes." --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:57, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll remove the reference to chlorite in the article for now, and hope that the wiki process will do its magic in the longer run. -- The Anome (talk) 17:11, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Update: I've found various references to "black serpentine" in old journals, but nothing to relate this to Zimbabwean springstone. -- The Anome (talk) 05:21, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
In this 2013 paper on the conservation of contemporary stone sculpture in Zimbabwe, it says "The most popular rock is serpentine whose varieties include springstone, leopard rock, cobalt stone, lepidolite, golden serpentine, fruitstone and Masvingo serpentine". I wonder what "fruitstone" looks like? Mikenorton (talk) 11:27, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Uhhhhh... lepidolite is a true mica, not a variety of serpentine, so this quote is already a little suspect! DanHobley (talk) 15:53, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Plate theory (volcanism)

I'm a bit concerned about this article and about references to this theory being inserted into a large number of other geology articles, mostly by @Feline Hymnic:. It has a lot of the red flags I associate with crank theories, but I also see that Foulger is referenced in Philpotts and Ague (though only as a bare mention that the plume theory is not undisputed.) How much of a real debate is there? Is this a legitimate minority view or is it fringe? As one who is only an amateur geologist (albeit with a Ph.D. in a sister field) I'm not confident I have a good feel for this. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Seems like the article is attempting to oversell the critique of mantle plume theory by about a mile - for one thing, I don't know of any substantial debate about the Hawaii hotspot being a plume that is contemporary. So yeah, I'd call crank theory on this one. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Is any material from that article rescuable? Or is it time for AfD? — hike395 (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I've only added it to a small number (approx. four) articles, two(?) of which were biographies (Gillian Foulger and Don Anderson). But yesterday I did also add it to Template: Hotspots; this one edit is probably what gave rise to its overall linkage count rising to its current value.
One problem in the debate is its frequent "either/or" characterisation: everything is plume or everything is plate. My own geophysics days are long, long past. But I rather suspect that something closer to reality is that deep mantle plume is an appropriate model in some places (e.g. Hawaii seamount chain) whereas shallow plate is more appropriate in others (e.g. Iceland). As with much of the development of the field in the last century or so (the concept of continental drift; then its generalisation into plate tectonics with (e.g.) Vine/Matthews magnetic reversals) this seems to be (as expected) an attempt to model some of the evidence. The proponents (Foulger, (the late) Anderson, Julian, etc.) seem to be well-respected long-term practitioners at respected places. (It's way, way more respectable than 'fringe'/'crank' stuff such as creationism!) But I suspect the associated "either/or; everything is plume or everything is plate" element of the debate may hinder the real substance of the debate.
Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I think you have it correct, Feline: mantle plumes explain Hawaii and Yellowstone/Snake River well. The currently overly binary presentation of the mechanisms (one is true, the other is false) is actively misleading to our readers. This really needs to be fixed. The question is --- can this article survive the fixing? It could be merged into volcanism, which doesn't really talk about mechanisms in depth. — hike395 (talk) 17:08, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. In which case doesn't the question "can the plate-theory article [be fixed]" become something like "can both the plate-theory and mantle-plume articles [be fixed]"? Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
The approach that immediately comes to mind is to merge plate theory into mantle plume. The idea is to take whatever legitimate criticisms of overuse of the plume model are found in the plate theory article and use them in the plume model to show its limitations.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I think this is about the right take. The problem is not that there aren't any limitations or critiques to be made of mantle plume models; it's that the Plate Theory people seem to be on a crusade, which is where all the red flags come from for me. We know, for example, that the Raton hotspot, well, isn't; the Jemez Lineament is pretty clearly a structural feature of some kind rather than a hotspot trace, making it the poster child for the kind of critique Foulger is pushing. The problem is with rejecting all mantle plumes, which I think is the cranky aspect. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Plate theory (for intraplate volcanism) is currently under debate in geological academic circles. There is also, for example, an article about the plate theory of volcanism in Elsevier's 6-volume state-of-the-art "Encyclopedia of Geology (2nd edition)" published this month. This seems recent enough to me and also suggests to me that it is not fringe or "crank". I'd say it is currently a minority view. GeoWriter (talk) 17:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. It turns out I have access to the Encyclopedia of Geology at my day job, and I looked at the articles on Plate Model and Intraplate Volcanism. The latter has four authors, discusses the plate model in what seems a fairly evenhanded manner, acknowledges that it has explanatory power for a lot of intraplate volcanism, while insisting that mantle plumes have great explanatory value for a lot of other intraplate volcanism, and generally comes across as very reasonable. The "Plate Model" article was authored solely by Foulger and pushes the idea that there are no mantle plumes, which still comes across as borderline fringe to me. So I still feel in a bit of a quandary on how to deal with this. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
In WP, many of us use pseudonyms rather than real names, as per "WP:Account" and "WP:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion" advice about privacy. (I can assure you that "Feline Hymnic" is nothing remotely like my real name, although you might reasonably guess two different likes of mine!) Shouldn't one be cautious about 'outing' "User:SphericalSong" as Foulger here (if, indeed, this is the case)? Feline Hymnic (talk) 18:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposal

  • Let both articles ("Mantle plume" and "Plate theory (volcanism)") remain.
    • Possibly rename the former to be 'theory' and the latter to be 'hypothesis' (but this point is probably secondary at present)
  • Let both articles focus on their own theory/hypothesis and supporting evidence
  • In both articles, try to avoid any sense of exclusivity (or binary "this explains everything and the other is wrong at everything")
  • Allow both articles have brief sections on regions where 'the other' may be a better explanation.

That's all very hand-wavy and imperfect. But might it be a starter for consideration ? Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

I think it's unhealthy to divide theories that are in tension -- a reader would have to read two articles to get a balanced view, and each article may drift towards the POV of the strongest proponents of the theory. I thus propose merging Mantle plume and Plate theory (volcanism) into one article. Perhaps the merged article should be titled Causes of volcanism ? — hike395 (talk) 02:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Agree, but I'd pick as the title Intraplate volcanism which, as you see, is not presently used. We can have a section on "Theories" and pretty much copy and paste each article under its title into that section. Then we can do a more thorough integration. The debate isn't over plate margin volcanism; there is pretty wide consensus on at least the general picture on that. This is all about how volcanism takes place away from plate edges. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 04:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Intraplate volcanism is a better title than the one I suggested. I like it. — hike395 (talk) 05:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Kent's suggestion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
I like the idea of a new article named Intraplate volcanism. It gives an opportunity to more generally describe e.g. the volcanic surface landforms and rock types found in this setting, as well as the proposed explanations of its cause(s). GeoWriter (talk) 14:43, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Since this looks suspiciously like consensus, I've created Draft:Intraplate volcanism and done the bare bones cut and paste of both articles. We can all work on integrating the material. If the result looks good, we can then move this to article space and change the old pages to redirects. There may be some formalities required (such as a formal merge request on both old pages to the new one) but we can worry about that when the time comes. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The formalities, incidentally, are important, for attribution. We will need to put {{copied}} templates onto the two original article talk pages so their history is flagged to be preserved. And now I'm kicking myself that I didn't properly attribute the original articles when I created the draft merge. I'll have to find some way to do that retrospectively. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:04, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
The article is more or less stitched together now. Anyone else want to take a pass at it before I move it into article space? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
sounded like a good plan, just wanted to say - don't forget to put both the old articles as redirects to the one Kent has made, and good job I'd suggest sticking it in article space, it will be better than what we currently have EdwardLane (talk) 10:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll be pushing it into article space shortly, on the belief that while a lot more work is needed, it's better than present. Since it's possible that not everyone who has an interest has been following this talk page, I'll go through the formalities of posting a merge proposal on the two original pages, with the initial discussion being a link here and a comment that the merge target already has the full content of both pages.
I think it's possible, perhaps even likely, that someone will suggest that the new page is good but the original pages are useful expansions on those models and should stay. We should consider what they have to say, but I think it goes back to what hike395 said about the dangers of two articles discussing theories that are in tension. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Kent, I saw that you added merge templates to the Mantle plume and Plate theory (volcanism) articles and had created a merged version as Draft:Intraplate volcanism, but I notice that you have now reverted the merge templates and the merged draft seems to have disappeared. Can you update us on your thinking/plans, please? GeoWriter (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Short version: I'm an educated non-geologist (my Ph.D. is in astronomy) whose edits are directed towards capturing expert consensus on geological topics for the benefit of educated non-geologist readers. I prefer to stick to non-controversial topics (heaven knows there are plenty of non-controversial geology articles that are nonetheless not well written). Pardon the language: I feel like I stepped in a turd here, the topic is radioactive, and I want nothing more to do with it. It will not be hard for one of you to recreate the article if you feel sufficiently motivated -- I got little further that copying and pasting the two articles together. But I really don't want my fingerprints on it. See User:Kent G. Budge for more on my background and editing philosophy, which includes not arguing with the real experts. I think I borked that badly here. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:58, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Sounds like you had a bad experience. Was there a discussion about the merge somewhere else? — hike395 (talk) 05:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
There was a discussion at the new page. It wasn't nasty or personal; it just highlighted for me that I was in over my head.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 05:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
All of us are in over our head when we edit on Wikipedia. The important thing is that we shouldn't present minority views as mainstream academic concensus. This doesn't mean that they should be ignored entirely, but simply given the appropriate weight. Based on the fact that this image on commons is claimed as "own work", I suspect that SphericalSong is in fact Gillian Foulger or someone associated with her, as it is featured in this PDF by her, which would make this a WP:COI, as she is the main promoter of the theory. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
The comment at the new page was by a user who was likely Gillian Foulger, judging from the username. I wish I could remember the exact username. She praised the Plate theory (volcanism) article and objected to having plate theory appear below mantle plumes in the new article, on the grounds that it is the emerging consensus and we are wrong to put it second and thereby distort the science. She also objected to titling it Intraplate volcanism since Iceland and other plate margin volcanism is part of the debate. I'm paraphrasing from memory as best I can in good faith. And I will have nothing further to say about this. As I said, there are plenty of noncontroversial topics in geology whose articles need rewriting, and that's a better place for someone like me to spend his efforts. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Of course she would. While Foulger is a respected scholar, she is clearly attempting to use Wikipedia to promogulate her minority views about tectonic volcanism, which is massively inappropriate and a violation of our neutral point of view policies. @Kent G. Budge: can I request that you WP:REFUND the page so that other users can continue to edit the article, even if you have no futher involvement? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:10, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Since I felt compelled to quote the comment on the page, it seems only fair to make the original available. So I will reluctantly REFUND. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I have nominated the page for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plate theory (volcanism). Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:55, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Other issues relating to the page

The creator of the Plate Theory (volcanism) article SphericalSong has rewritten around a dozen hotspot related articles, attempting to promote the "plate theory" and cast doubt on the mantle plumes, see 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Many of which cite "MantlePlumes.org" and Foulgers book. I am concerned that these edits do not conform to the neutral point of view and our WP:FRINGE policy on minority viewpoints. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:27, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this feels like a POV-pushing effort. There are many more sources discussing the plume theory for each but here it's being presented as if there is an equivalent amount of coverage. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
On the front page of http://www.mantleplumes.org/ it has a section stating "New Wikipedia page established: Plate theory (volcanism)". This was added sometime between now and January 11th and now. The Wikipedia article uses the same image as on this page of the mantleplumes.org entitled "The Plate Theory of Volcanism" by Gilligan R. Foulger. This image has been uploaded to commons and is claimed as "own work" by SphericalSong. Other images uploaded to commons by SphericalSong appear to be under laundered licenses from copyrighted books and journal articles that should be nominated for deletion. All of this together makes me suspect that the operator of "SphericalSong" has a close relationship with mantleplumes.org Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I have insufficient familiarity to contribute, but the complete absence of any mention of alternative theories or of scholarly criticism of this theory, plus the paired promotion of the Wikipedia page by mantleplumes.org and of mantleplumes.org by the Wikipedia page, makes this look very much like an intentional POV-push by an acolyte (if not by the prophet). Agricolae (talk) 19:31, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I noticed that on the mantleplumes.org website and found it very COI-ish. XOR'easter (talk) 20:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
If the FTN thread expires and this still persists WP:COIN may be a good candidate in this case, —PaleoNeonate – 04:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
Crossroads has reverted most of these (thanks for that). They almost exclusively cited Foulgers book or papers she was a co-author on. Foulger has replied at the Fringe theories noticeboard (where I opened up a thread) see Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Marquesas_hotspot. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:40, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
@Mikenorton: Do you want to weigh in about how fringe non-mantle plume theories are in contemporary academic geology? Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:14, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
My own area of recent research, such as it is, only impinges slightly on this debate, although the observation I've made of repeated magmatism offshore North Gabon over more than 100 Ma fits much better with some form of pulsed plume activity, with no obvious active tectonics accompanying the six post break-up phases, so I have a clear POV here. My impression from searching recent literature on intraplate magmatism along the conjugate margins of the South Atlantic is that no serious alternatives to some sort of plume origin are being considered. Make of that what you will. Mikenorton (talk) 08:37, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
My feeling when consulting sources for Vema seamount and the like was, too, that all theories mentioned involve some kind of plume origin. Sometimes with variations e.g the view that the Vema hotspot is simply a blob that separated from the Tristan hotspot, but still fundamentally plume related.

There is a oft-discussed theory that mantle plumes form when, or are influenced by, downgoing slabs from subduction zones sink into the mantle and stir/melt in the lower mantle and core-mantle boundary zone. That is definitively a mainstream viewpoint but it's not the same thing as the "plate theory" discussed here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:58, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Bit late to the party here, but mantleplumes.org is not a reputable source - it's widely recognised as an advocacy website for a specific - and TBH, pretty fringe - point of view on mantle dynamics. Gillian Foulger created the hypothesis, is/was very involved in that website, and it is decidedly non-mainstream. If GF has been involved in that editing, it's absolutely COI. Those ideas absolutely should not be set equal to existing content; but equally, it should be acknowledged and critiqued. I am pretty sure there are reviews out there that do this critiquing well. The problem is likely that our plate articles are quite locked in to 1960s-1990s viewpoints on plume and plate dynamics, which need updating with modern nuance. i.e., plate theory works best in the oceans, it breaks down on the continents, there are lots of subtleties to the way plumes and plates interact and special cases, and all that still doesn't mean it's sensible to come to the conclusion that plumes are not A Thing (which deep down, is where the underlying hypothesis is coming from). DanHobley (talk) 10:34, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

A major problem is the actual framing of the debate. There is a perceived presentation as an "either/or" of all the phenomena being described: "mantle plumes describe everything" or "plate theory describes everything". In some geographic locations (some seamount chains spring to mind) there seems to be exceptionally good evidence for mantle plumes. But it also looks as though "plate theory" might be a plausible, possibly more appropriate, explanation at other locations (let's say Iceland or Yellowstone, although I'm open to correction on those choices). It might be helpful if we could de-couple the "either/or, applying to all instances" aspect. Feline Hymnic (talk) 13:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

This spate of edits two days ago seems also like it might be part of the issue. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:52, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I just skimmed these (noting that GFoulger is the editor, so SphericalSong is very unlikely to be Prof. Foulger!). They are very fair edits, and seem scrupulously NPOV to me. When you know the background of the plume debate you can see why the editor wants these tightened up, but it's entirely reasonable to do so. DanHobley (talk) 16:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Geology sidebar

A new sidebar - {{Geology sidebar}} - has been created by User:Bluealbion and has been added to several articles. Leaving aside issues such as the spelling of tectonics, the redlink, what is included and what left out and how it is organised, is it a useful addition? Mikenorton (talk) 09:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't seem bad - but it could probably do with expansion volcanism paleontology etc - might not be a bad idea to link the various geology topics together EdwardLane (talk) 13:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
One concern is that we have sidebars for things like stratigraphic units, and having both sidebars on a page seems awkward. I like the geology sidebar but suggest it be restricted to use on "top-level" geology topics that don't have more specialized sidebars of their own.
The other concern is where a topic has a really nice illustrative image that should be the first image the reader sees. I suppose it's okay if this sits above the geology sidebar, but I wonder if there is a more elegant solution. Perhaps the geology sidebar could have a top title that is topic-specific, an image, and then the "Part of a series on geology" without the Delicate Arch? If there is no such topic-specific image, the Delicate Arch could be a kind of default image. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
When I noticed one of these pop up, my first gut instinct was that I didn't like it. I think this is largely an aesthetic response, but I think the way to think about it is - what is this adding? Any decent high level geology article should have a hyperlink to geology somewhere in the lede that the reader can follow if they actually want this info; in many cases this is extraneous information not linked to topic specifically, and therefore not really appropriate to an article IMO. There are also lots of cases (e.g. geomorphology) where the discipline is easily classifiable a number of ways (in this case, geography, but plenty of other examples), and the sidebar is privileging geology above these others for the reader. Finally - how is what page receives the template determined?
Having knocked about geo-WP for a LOT of years now, my recollection is that once every few years someone designs and adds one of these, it survives for a few months until enough editors notice them and are irritated by them, it then gets gradually removed piecemeal from individual articles, then finally one of these discussions happens again and we end up removing it entirely largely based on the arguments above. I suspect we may be about to enter another one of these cycles...DanHobley (talk) 10:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, DanHobley. I had not thought of the case of a topic that is not purely geology. That tends to shift my thinking a bit against this sidebar. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:45, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

We already have a a footer {{Geology}}. Such footers are ideal for top-down navigation of a broad topic, while also avoiding the "in your face" nature of sidebars. Given that we have the footer, what additional benefit does a similar, indeed potentially near-equivalent, sidebar bring? Feline Hymnic (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Just for reference, I just removed the one of these over at Geomorphology. DanHobley (talk) 12:03, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Personally, I don't mind the template as I only access WP via a PC - maybe it might be intrusive for someone using a smart phone. And just how many users scroll right down the page to read the footer? I think that the template may be very useful in getting the general public more interested in the science. Bahudhara (talk) 07:58, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Jurassic listed at peer review

I have massively expanded the Jurassic article since December, so I've nominated it for peer review. If you have any comments, please send them to Wikipedia:Peer review/Jurassic/archive1. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:21, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

That's some really impressive work. I did a couple minor tweaks, but I'll comment at peer review if anything else catches my eye. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 21:56, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

First appearance datum

Hello all,

I've tried to clean up the First appearance datum article a little, just so it seems clearer and has some references to back the content up. I'd appreciate any input you all might have as to what could be added or changed. In particular, I'm not sure if information about the related concept Last appearance datum can also be included in this article. Or, similarly, if I can link to List of index fossils, which seems like another similar concept--I'm just not sure if it is relevant or helpful to link to it from the First appearance datum page. Would be glad to hear any of your thoughts about this. Thanks, RVSNS (talk) 21:44, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Pangaea

Pangaea is one of our most viewed articles, receiving nearly 1 million views last year. (For a comprehensive list of the top 1000, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Popular pages). There are large amounts of uncited text. The problem with writing about Pangea, as I've learned with Jurassic, is that it covers such a large span of time that it feels difficult to know what to write about, and the need to cover the topic comprehensively but succinctly. The article should cover the asssembly and collapse of Pangea from a geological perspective, but I don't know how much technical detail should be included, given the likely lay audience. I think Kent G. Budge has done excellent work on the life section, but I wonder if a more comprehensive treatment would be better. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:44, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure the life section needs too much more expansion. This seems like an article that should emphasize plate tectonics, since the breakup of Pangaea has historically been so important in the development of tectonic theory. I think the first thing is to make sure that section is properly sourced. At present, it's the most poorly sourced part of the article, and it should really be the most solid part. Also, though I tried to organize it a bit for easier readability, it's still a bit of a spew of facts that doesn't (yet) tell a good story. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:00, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I think that the information would be best conveyed by a series of sequential diagrams showing the positions of the world's continents, with the collisional events emphasised. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:06, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Agreed. The task is to find or create such graphics. It would be best to have graphics prepared the same way, so it's not a hodgepodge of images in very different styles for each stage. I'll see if I can't find a way to generate images that I can put in the public domain. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I think the best approach to create clean palaeomaps is to get multiple maps from the same time period that have been reconstructed by different authors and include the parts where they agree but exclude or rely on more regional maps where they don't. For maps that focus on the collisions I think loosely redrawing a pre-existing map is ok, as is done in research papers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Anything I do will in some sense be a loose redrawing of pre-existing maps. :) --Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Aaaand ... here's the first map. Crude enough to not infringe copyright, but a reasonable representation of Torsvik and Cock's reconstruction. Tell me what you think before I make the effort to generate more. Incidentally, Torsvik has a software package downloadable from his web site at Cambridge for producing globe maps. Alas, I could not get it to work on my Ubuntu system -- it had a slew of package dependencies that no one site could all resolve and I finally gave up in frustration. Also not sure if the format is really what is needed or if you can actually make PNGs from it. Or what licensing terms would apply.

If this seems okay, then I plan for subsequent maps to show orogenies as red zones. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 00:36, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

A key should probably be provided in the file description if you're going to have letter abbreviations. While it is a good start, imo it looks somewhat rough with the pixellated edges, and I think it would look better smoothed and vectorised using something like Inkscape, which I believe can be installed on ubuntu. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Adding the key to the file description is straightforward. Inkscape: Turns out it's already installed on my system, though I've never used it. Another package to learn ... sigh. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Sorry if I am asking too much. Inkscape is very easy to get your head around, I wouldn't worry about it. Other minor points:
  • Torsvik and Cocks 2017 should be cited in full
  • The size of the Ocean labels could be increased for enhanced legibility at thumbnail resolution.

Otherwise I think it's pretty good. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

It's not too much. The latest version of GIMP is kind of a disaster, so this is a good time to learn a different tool. Citation, like legend, is easy to edit. Getting the ocean labels right might require abbreviations, but possibly worth it for legibility. Will have a second attempt up hopefully soon. Perhaps not til Saturday -- tomorrow is the 30th annual Kent Is No Longer 29 hike. :) --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:55, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
New rendering up. File information hasn't been updated yet; I'll worry about that once the basic rendering is satisfactory. What do you think? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:15, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
I think this is a substantial improvement. I imagine the tectonic reconstructions for the Cambrian are pretty fragmentary, but I assume you intend to include plate boundaries and subduction margins in the more recent reconstructions for which the tectonics are more constrained? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, my source (Torsvik and Cocks) makes no attempt to place spreading centers this early. They show some plate boundaries but I was inclined to leave them out until the plates actually rift. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:05, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Another.
Can Avalonia be labelled? Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:14, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Sure. Also making this a gallery.
  • Paleogeography of Earth in the late Cambrian, around 490 Ma
    Paleogeography of Earth in the late Cambrian, around 490 Ma
  • Paleogeography of Earth in the middle Silurian, around 430 Ma
    Paleogeography of Earth in the middle Silurian, around 430 Ma
  • Paleogeography of Earth in the late Carboniferous, around 210 Ma
    Paleogeography of Earth in the late Carboniferous, around 210 Ma
  • Paleogeography of the Earth at the Permian-Triassic boundary, around 250 Mya
    Paleogeography of the Earth at the Permian-Triassic boundary, around 250 Mya
I think that if you're going to draw them "blobby" like this then you should round off the sharp edges. Also where is the triple junction in Panthalassa between the Izanagi, Farallon and Phoenix plates? Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:07, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
I haven't included any spreading centers. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 00:11, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Fair enough, I was getting mixed up remembering about the genesis of the Pacific Plate. I would include the standard triangles to denote the location of subduction margins. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:23, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
I will, when I can figure out how to get Inkscape to do it. I'm thinking I might be able to add spreading centers as thinner green lines. So you think the continent lines would be better either all blocky or all blobby? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
For the subduction margins It's probably easiest to copy paste triangles and then rotate them to the orientation of the line. The only map currently that I think is too jagged is the third one one at 310 mya, the other 2 look fine. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:08, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
The latest one looks really good. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:29, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm going to go work on Shale for a while and let these ripen a little, then come back, see if I want to touch them up (or add more time snapshots) and then go to work on Pangea. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:08, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Ruegen Formations

Are Rügen White Chalk Formation and Rugen Formation the same thing? The articles are uniformly uninformative and identical (a geologic formation from the Cretaceous in Germany). The references are not usable, since they reference the front page of a website instead of a specific webpage containing information. They were created by the same user at the same point in time. They both appear on List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Germany -- 67.70.27.105 (talk) 15:56, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Both articles appear to have been generated semi-robotically from the Fossilworks database. There is a "Not to be confused with the Rugen Formation" hatnote on the Rügen White Chalk Formation article, but I wouldn't put too much trust on that. Let me google around a bit and see if I can get a more definitive answer.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:03, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
Google Scholar turns up no hits for either name. However, there are many papers describing the geology of Rugen Island, and many of these mention the presence of chalk. My guess is that these are informal unit names. If so, they lack notability for their own articles and should probably be folded into the discussion of geology at the Rügen article.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:07, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I believe the native name in German is Rügener Kreide, and it has a separate (and quite substantial) article on dewiki Rügener Kreide [de]. According to the article it is lithostratigraphically described as the Rugen Member of the Hemmoor Formation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
If it's an unusually well-characterized formal member, I think that establishes notability for English Wiki. Certainly there are scads of research papers on the geology of Rügen that mention its chalk beds. I think the right thing is to translate over the German article, probably under the title Rügen Chalk, and redirect the two existing articles to it.--Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:13, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
Draft:Rügen Chalk is up and duly attributed to the German article. All welcome to assist in translating. I have a mild preference for copying the raw original, then using a translating tool a paragraph at a time, when not fluent in the original language. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:04, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
A rough translation has been done. THere are a couple of terms I'm uncertain of: Schlämmkreide = "mud chalk", "whitewashed chalk", "precipitated chalk", or "washed chalk"? Also Tagebau = open-cast mine, open-pit mine, strip mine? Please look it over before I move it into article space. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:30, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Retreat of glaciers since 1850#Requested move 7 May 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Retreat of glaciers since 1850#Requested move 7 May 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vpab15 (talk) 16:50, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Category:Science articles needing expert attention

You are invited to participate in a discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Science#Category:Science_articles_needing_expert_attention about the following articles:

Discussion of Template:Life timeline and MOS:SMALLFONT

There is a discussion of how and whether to modify {{Life timeline}} (a graphical timeline that shows the history of life over the last 4500 Ma) to obey the accessibility guideline to avoid small fonts. You're welcome to join in the discussion here. — hike395 (talk) 06:52, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Need an opinion from a geologist please?

The question is fairly simple and straightforward: while attempting to improve the article on Dashrath Manjhi we are trying to identify the type of rock formation that Gehlaur Ganj (side view) is. Is it a Horst, is it a stretch of lava that filled the crack in the crust and then solidified (somewhat reminiscing Castle Rock (Edinburgh)), or is it something else (and what is the scientific name for it)? Any clarification on the matter would be highly appreciated! -- Wesha (talk) 18:30, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Wesha. Yep, that's pretty easy to respond to! Looking at the local Geological Survey of India 1:250,000 map (here, should be citable), that landform is shown as being a quartzite ridge, composed of Middle Proterozoic (about 1.6 to 1 billion years ago) quartzite of the Munger Group (unit 'Mq' in the map). It is a ridge formed by differential weathering between different layers of a metamorphosed sediment sequence, with the very hard and resistant quartzite (originally a sandstone) remaining relatively intact, and the much softer rock that is was interlayered with (phyllite and schist, formerly shales and mudstones; unit 'Ms' in the map) weathering away. The low ground caused by this weathering has been filled by much younger (Late Pleistocene to Holocene, that's less than 1 million years ago right up until present) silt and clay, through which the ancient quartzite sticks up, forming a ridge. It is a pretty common geometry that can form when you have a hard layer within a sedimentary sequence. Hope that helps? Cheers. Pyrope 19:25, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

GAR for 2008 Sichuan earthquake

2008 Sichuan earthquake, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm Talk 05:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced Conundrum

Stepped profile has been unsourced for some years- and the term definitely exists in context of rivers as mentioned in the article from some brief Googling.

The weird thing is that all the articles linking to it are about architecture or mountains- not about rivers/water-bodies. Should I find another target for those articles and add the river-based sources to this one? Or is there a similar article about steps in nature/design/engineering this could merge or be improved by? I feel like the term "stepped profile" might be too multi-disciplinary (math, geology, etc.) that I'm struggling to figure out just how to fulfil basic notability! Help? Estheim (talk) 22:31, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

In rivers, a stepped profile is just a particular kind of "longitudinal profile", something that doesn't have an article itself. Knickpoints are related as they form the steep parts of the steps. I'm not sure that it justifies a separate article. Mikenorton (talk) 23:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
Searched for "stepped profile" and "longitudinal profile" and fluvial in google scholar and found numerous references to stepped profiles of rivers. However, it seems like that type of "stepped profile" could be easily merged with and should be discussed in the Knickpoint article. It seems to be there are too many types of "stepped profiles" in the humanities and basic and other sciences (math, electronics, etc.), that it is impractical and likely confusing to have a single artcle about them. If anything, "stepped profile" is a descriptive term, much like "cherry red" that can be applied to any number of objects or contexts Paul H. (talk) 02:40, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
That text is extremely garbled, and largely lacking in information content. A lot of it is imprecise at best and wrong at worst. My first instinct would be a redirect to knickpoint, or if as you are suggesting there are more prevalent uses of the term in other disciplines, just AfD it so we stop squatting on the name. Long profile is another matter. Having a quality article on that would be very valuable. ETA: i.e., I am proposing this is a content fork on Knickpoint, and also not notable, for the purposes of an AFD. DanHobley (talk) 08:13, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Mikenorton, Paul H., DanHobley; I went ahead with the AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stepped profile. The incoming WL discreps and vagueness make me feel this article serves no good to any reader. Estheim (talk) 09:25, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Massive Australian Precambrian/Cambrian Impact Structure

I have been making edits to this article Massive Australian Precambrian/Cambrian Impact as part of an University assignment. My objective is to improve this article from its status as a stub, and also improve its assessment rating on this WIkiproject. This article primarily discusses a proposed impact structure in the middle of Australia, and the evidence for this theory. The theory was coined and popularised by Daniel Connelly.

I would like this article to be reviewed and rated by members of this Wikiproject.

I have also posted this article on [Australia]. Thanks JeffreyYin333 (talk)

To be quite frank, I'm not sure we should even have an article at all. It seems to be an idea that hasn't gained any traction in reliable sources, with the only sources proposing that this supposed impact crater exists being conference abstracts by the originators of the theory, which haven't been peer reviewed or subject to any scientific scrutiny. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:17, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Serious concerns about this had already been raised at the article 8 years ago by @Paul H.:, see Talk:Massive_Australian_Precambrian/Cambrian_Impact_Structure#This Article Desperately Needs Reliable Secondary Sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:32, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Now at AfD, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Massive Australian Precambrian/Cambrian Impact Structure. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Speaking of questionable impact crater proposals, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bohemian crater. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

More fringe impact crater claims

I have just been going through Category:Possible impact craters on Earth. There are some iffy ones like Middle-Urals Ring Structure, which appear to have passing mentions in the academic literature. I found three that I couldn't find any non-conference abstract sourcing for, Fried Egg structure, Gatun structure and Guarda Crater. As such I have nominated them for deletion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:01, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Among the listed impact structures there a number of them that are either fringe claims, documented only by conference abstracts, or combination of both. I am glad that someone has the fortitude to go through them one by one. I will help out as best as I can given that my home iMac power supply is dying on me and it will not be until July 4 to 14 before it gets replaced. Paul H. (talk) 00:58, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
I managed to find a 2018 paper on the Umm al Binni lake which strongly disputes the impact crater claims, and added it to the article. The article is heavily sourced to conference abstracts that support the impact claims. Ideally large parts of the article need to be rewritten. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:14, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
I would add Burckle Crater to the list of those lacking independent secondary sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul H. (talk • contribs)
I agree that there isn't enough coverage about this specific crater, however it is closely associated with dubious "Holocene megatsunami" claims, which seem to have some reliable coverage. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
One still useful resource for finding citations to publications despite its age is the David Rajmon Global Impact Crater GIS Project on the American Association of Petroleum Geologists data-ages. Paul H. (talk) 14:11, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
A slight caution. The citations at this page are valuable for judging notability. The mere mention of a candidate impact site on this page dos not establish notability (for one thing, it's open file.) I think most of us understand this, but just as a reminder. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:56, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Syneclise

Syneclise appears to be a former-Soviet geological term used to refer to some types of sedimentary basin. Would this be better treated as part of the sedimentary basin article? Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:59, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

As an example the term "Moscow Basin" is used more often than "Moscow Syneclise" and the term "Dhieper-Donits Basin" is used much more often than "Dnieper-Donits Syneclise" (note this is mispelled in our article and in the original Graham Park book that's cited). Fully agree with merging into the "sedimentary basin" article. Mikenorton (talk) 09:36, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Volcano groups

Complex volcano and Volcanic group are two list-like articles. I'm struggling to see the difference. Each article acknowledges the other in the See also section, but the leads really muddy the distinction with the alt names that completely overlap. Unless there really is a clear difference (note that the latter has no sources), shouldn't they be merged. MB 17:58, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

User:MB to be honest, the volcanic group article wrongly assumes that "volcanic group" and "volcanic complex" are synonymous. Some volcanic groups may be considered volcanic complexes but that is not always the case. A complex volcano may be considered a type of volcanic group. If you look at the revision history of volcanic complex you will see it originally redirected to complex volcano. The redirect was then changed without discussion. Volcanoguy 17:41, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Notability guidelines for geology topics

This is prompted by the meteor impact discussion. Obviously we follow general WP:NOTABILITY guidelines, but perhaps it would be useful to flesh out some specifics for geology articles? For example, we had a discussion many months back where the idea was floated, and not particularly challenged, that stratigraphic units of formation rank or above were presumptively notable. (I'd add the qualifier that there have to be multiple independent reliable sources that treat the unit as a formation.) We're having a discussion now emphasizing the need for multiple independent reliable sources for impact events, which is unsurprising considering this is exactly the kind of topic that attracts the fringe. Would there be any value in having a permanent section in the geology project emphasizing WP:NOTABILITY and particularly spelling out how it applies to certain geology topics? If so, are there any other geology topics that inherently are prone to this kind of thing? (I'm looking at some of my own formation articles on New Mexico formations, FWIW.) I'd exclude taxonomic articles from this discussion, since that's more of a WP:Paleontology issue and they seem to have a robust understanding of when a taxon is notable. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:06, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

From what I recall at WikiProject Earthquakes, a project can write its own notability guidelines but to quote from the overall notability page "Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion)." Mikenorton (talk) 21:00, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
First cut: Draft:Notability (geology). With due respect to Dunning-Kruger and the reality that I am not a professional geologist, I invite one and all to edit mercilessly. I cheerfully acknowledge that I may have got some things very wrong. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:20, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
Kent, thanks for drafting a notability essay. I think most of it seems fine to me on my first reading of it, but I have a few initial comments about Open File reports: The source in your notability essay is a geologist at the USGS. I doubt that she can speak for open file reports produced by other organisations e.g. the British Geological Survey. Also, she states that such reports are non-permanent. Do you think this has a negative impact on notability? She cites USGS examples written in 1918 and 1937! So they can hang around for longer than the average human lifespan. By the way, I found what I think is a more authoritative definition of open file report (as far as USGS is concerned) at https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/documentation/usgs_series#WhatdocumentsandpublicationsareindexedinthePubsWarehouse?-Open-FileReport(OFR/OF). This source emphasises quick release of information and does not mention permanence. It seems to me to be saying that the USGS can use such open file reports to publish information such as field excursion guides (which are hardly ever peer-reviewed in geology in general) or to supplement other publications e.g. their Professional Papers, which are gold standard research. GeoWriter (talk) 14:58, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I'll dig a little harder for more international sources on what open file means to different national surveys. It sounds like permanence is not necessarily a feature of open file for USGS, so I'll remove that.
All: I list impact events and extinction events as things that seem to attract fringe theories and need particularly care to establish notability. I also suggest formation stratigraphic rank as the rank at which a stratigraphic unit is presumptively notable enough for its own article, assuming the usual multiple independent reliable sources treating it as a formation. Are there other topics that in your experien e have proven problematic as far as attracting fringe hypotheses that ought to be included in the notability essay? If so, be bold and add them. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:05, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
You need to address the lack of peer-review / reliability for the several "crater lists" that are often cited for individual "impact crater / structure" articles, e.g. Shiva crater, and Wikipedia lists, e.g. List of impact craters on Earth. For example, in the Shiva Crater article it is stated "It is presently (2019) on the list of probable impact craters[3] and is rated '1' based on three-step confidence level criteria of Anna Mikheeva of Russian Academy of Sciences..." and the Expert Database on Earth Impact Structures list is mentioned as an authoritative source. In case of the Wikipedia's List of impact craters on Earth, many of these crater lists are cited as if they are reliable, vetted sources. It seems like something should be said about use and misuse of various "crater list" that can be found online as sources. Paul H. (talk) 15:28, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Sounds right. Be bold. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Page is up. Feel free to tweak. One question for the group: My impression is that mindat.org, much as I like the site, is largely user-generated and therefore not a reliable source, notwithstanding it is used in the great majority of mineral articles. Am I harshing too much on the site? Should something be said about it in the notability/reliability/due weight page? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 03:32, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

List of largest volcanic eruptions: Guarapuava-Tamarana Sarusas

Recently a user named Aleral Wei added a note to the Guarapuava-Tamarana Sarusas eruption. The note said that the eruption might be effusive. I looked at the reference, I saw that there were high amounts of effusive eruptive activity, but no mention of Guarapuava - Tamarana Sarusas. Also, the igneous province where the eruption occurred ( The Parana-Etendaka traps ) has some rheoignimbrite, meaning some eruptions were explosive. What are your thoughts? Thank you. The Space Enthusiast (talk) 02:18, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I found two papers that discuss this issue.
1. Luchetti, A.C.F., Gravley, D.M., Gualda, G.A. and Nardy, A.J., 2018a. Textural evidence for high-grade ignimbrites formed by low-explosivity eruptions, Paraná Magmatic Province, southern Brazil. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 355, pp.87-97.
PDF at Repositório Institucional UNESP
and 2. Luchetti, A.C.F., Nardy, A.J. and Madeira, J., 2018b. Silicic, high-to extremely high-grade ignimbrites and associated deposits from the Paraná Magmatic Province, southern Brazil. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 355, pp.270-286.
PDF at Repositório Institucional UNESP
both papers note that 1. "Tholeiitic basalts and andesite-basalts make up ~97% of all the erupted material, while only ~3% of the erupted material is of silicic composition" and 2. "...explosively formed-collapse caldera volcanoes have not been documented in the PMP..." In addition, they concluded that textural evidence "... support a low explosivity pyroclastic origin, possibly low-column fountain eruptions with discharge rates high enough to produce laterally extensive high-grade ignimbrites..." According to this interpretaton, the presence of rheoignimbrite does not necessarily require massive explosive eruptions.
The terms "Guarapuava-Tamarana Sarusas," "Guarapuava-Ventura," "Santa Maria/Fria" and others are listed in Table 3, page 218 of Bryan et al. (2010) as individual silicic (rheoignimbrite) eruptive units within the Parana-Etendaka traps. It appears that an eruptive unit is presumed to be the aggregate product of a single eruption of a vent or a group of vents. For the details, go see:
Bryan, S.E., Peate, I.U., Peate, D.W., Self, S., Jerram, D.A., Mawby, M.R., Marsh, J.G. and Miller, J.A., 2010. The largest volcanic eruptions on Earth. Earth-Science Reviews, 102(3-4), pp.207-229. Paul H. (talk) 02:02, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I actually saw the fact that lava fountaining took place. Did ash columns occur but rarely?The Space Enthusiast (talk) 04:10, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Carboniferous Stratigraphy

I've been working on a draft overhauling the stratigraphy section of the Carboniferous article over at User:Hemiauchenia/sandboxCarboniferous. The main issue with the Carboniferous is that most regions of the world have their own separate local stratigraphic schemes, which are still in widespread use. Would it be worth creating some kind of diagram or template showing the correlation of the local schemes with the ICS one, like this one? We already have Template:Carboniferous European subdivisions, but that only shows the European scheme. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:15, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I see Kent G. Budge has already created something like this, but the text is too small to be legible in thumb view. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes, that's a problem. I would prefer something more like the stratigraphy graphics that appear in infoboxes, but I couldn't figure out how to do that. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:01, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

List-O-Mania?

"List of minerals of Pakistan" strikes me as an unnecessary list, particularly since there is no such list for any other geographical area. Thoughts? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 22:15, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

This list could be shortened to a paragraph of text and merged into the Geology of Pakistan and/or the Gemstones of Pakistan articles. GeoWriter (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Stone stripping

Does anyone know what "stone stripping" related to periglaciation is? I came across this phrase in a source but couldn't find a definition or a WP article for it. Volcanoguy 17:59, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Could it refer to stone stripes? I have a couple of sources that mention these, and they appear to be a feature of patterned ground associated with permafrost. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:52, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
It turns out "stripping" was just a typo on my part. I looked at the source again and it says stone striping. Volcanoguy 19:28, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
For an example, download and look at The Characteristics and Genesis of Stone Stripes in North Central Oregon. Paul H. (talk) 20:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
It looks like we have a redirect from Stone striping to an appropriate article. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes I made that redirect awhile ago. Volcanoguy 20:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
It looks like some further work is required. Stone stripes which occur on hillsides subject to periglacial processes (they're likely to be stone polygons on more level surfaces subject to the same stresses) are rather more widely encountered than the examples in the article would lead the reader to understand. A redirect to Patterned ground might be appropriate - the stone stripe material of Oregon used as an example looks to be a subset of patterned ground. Geopersona (talk) 13:03, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Makes sense - but I note as written, the two articles aren't compatible. The images in stone stripes clearly show them on hillslopes >~15 degrees, but the patterned ground article says they form on ground 2-7 degrees. [I've also seen these in the field with my own two eyes, and they can form on slopes up to and exceeding 35 degrees...] I think the relevant patterned ground section would need expanding alongside a redirect. DanHobley (talk) 14:01, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
@Geopersona: It's funny you mention that because I was writing about stone striping and periglacial processes on the Level Mountain article when I started this discussion. Volcanoguy 14:28, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Yes, further referenced editing certainly required. Thanks both! Geopersona (talk) 19:15, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Cirque

This article has me scratching my head for a couple of reasons. What's the scope of the article, the glacial landform, or the French term? And is it a "vital" article, or a "low-importance" one -- or somehow both? Thanks in advance for any assistance, ideally in the form of comments at, or edits in, the article in question. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 08:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

There already is a discussion on it here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:49, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
That was a comment by me, as I also did at the third interested wikiproject. Rather than having (fairly cursory thus far) discussions on one or more wikiprojects, I suggested (as above) doing so at the article itself. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 10:41, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Abiogenic petroleum origin

Is this a notable fringe theory? It seems to unduly promote the hypothesis. Large amounts of text are uncited. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:04, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think "notable fringe theory" is about on target, per the Wikipedia definitions of "notable" and "fringe". The lead seems reasonably balanced (though I can think of a tweak or two I might make) but I haven't closely read the body. Will do so when I have a chance. But I'm not a subject matter expert; a petroleum geologist could probably bring the right balance to the article. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 03:43, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
At one time this was a viable alternate theory, and not fringe in the past. So there would be plenty of older references. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

AfD - Neuburg siliceous earth

This deletion discussion needs attention from someone with experience in mineralogy to help decide whether this material should have its own article. Please help. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 05:32, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

As one result of the debate there I recently created Draft:Siliceous earth and now would be very grateful for people with Mineralogy experience to help me fill it with sourced content. Please help. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 00:11, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
I am taking notes for the first section now and supply references. As talk noted above, additional help welcomed. Paul H. (talk) 03:17, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for your work so far, Paul H..
After translating the German article (and addin it to our draft), I'd like to ask you geologists: "Is siliceous earth a common (well-defined) scientific term, nowadays?" --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 20:24, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
I'd not heard of the term siliceous earth in this context before seeing this discussion. From what I can understand so far, siliceous earth is being used by Hoffman Mineral (and a few companies in India and China) as a name for a commercial product. Most of the information I have been able to find is generated by parties involved with the companies developing the resource. I did find a few engineering/materials science papers discussing it, but it is seemingly being used as a name for specific variant of sedimentary rock for commercial purposes. By no definition is it a mineral in its own right and would be classed a form of clay rich, siliceous sedimentary rock. The SiO2 mineral component may be a unique polymorph, but I've not been able to find any third party verification of this, and it certainly isn't recognised by the IMA. Jarred C Lloyd (talk) 01:30, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks a ton for your reply, Jarred C Lloyd. In what other contexts did you hear of the term? What do you think of my recent proposal for a lead paragraph on the relevant deletion discussion page? How would you phrase it yourself? Or do you even think the term should have its own article on Wikipedia?
Sorry for all the questions, but I do feel I've waded in to deep there, and I'm glad for any more experienced help with this. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 04:48, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I've not ever specifically heard of the term "siliceous earth" prior, there are a few more common terms like bulk silicate earth (has a specific meaning in geochemistry), siliceous rock and siliceous sediment but again these have specific meanings. After a bit more searching I've found this article[1] which lends useful information regarding the geological aspect of this. From the stratigraphic and lithologic detail in this paper (pages 557-562) it confirms my previous comment re. it being a specific variant of sedimentary rock being mined for commercial purposes. Lithologically it sounds like soft, unconsolidated siliceous clays and silts, with minor sand and opaline nodules - somewhat of an altered, eroded sandy shale/claystone, and certainly some biogenic origin (precursor may have been a chert that has been eroded and silicified later) - I'll add a disclaimer to this, that it is my opinion as a stratigrapher based on the information I have been able to find about the unit.
In saying that, this quote is from the linked reference:

"Neuburger Kieselerde; English: Neuburg Siliceous Earth (Göske and Kachler 2008): Informal term, currently applied for the unconsolidated, fine-grained, carbonate-free, predominantly siliceous sediment of the Neuburg Kieselerde Member, which is mined for industrial applications."

The Wellheim Formation could have it's own page with the Neuburg Kieselerde Member and a section on the commercial application of the "siliceous earth" product that is used in materials science. I can't really be of much more help than that, as it could be a local German name for a sedimentary rock (this doesn't appear to be the case) and I'm from Australia - a geologist with existing knowledge of the formation would be ideal to comment on this. It is possible to find the term used in materials science, although not particularly frequently and seemingly as a commercial product, but a materials scientist who deals with rubber/silica products may be able to help more. Jarred C Lloyd (talk) 08:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
This seems to me to be the right solution. It avoids the problem of WP:PROMO while allowing some limited discussion of the commercial use of material mined from this formation. We have a (weak) consensus that stratigraphic units of formation rank or higher, so identified in multiple reliable independent sources, are presumptively notable. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
"Siliceous earth"' is a legitimate term in current general geological use. It is defined for example in Neuendorf et al. (2005) "Glossary of Geology, 5th edition", published by the American Geological Institute (on page 599 - which can be viewed in Google Books). Another definition of siliceous earth and mention of Indian examples occurs in T.S. Chouhan (2017) "Remote Sensing and GIS GPS Based Resource Management" (on page 184 - which can be viewed in Google Books). GeoWriter (talk) 14:48, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
First, Kent G. Budge stated that "We have a (weak) consensus that stratigraphic units of formation rank or higher, so identified in multiple reliable independent sources, are presumptively notable." I have noticed that a considerable number of stubs and resulting articles for stratigraphic units are justified on the basis of the stratigraphic unit being fossil-bearing. The Wellheim Formation meets that criteria as it contains a notable / significant fossil fauna for that portion of the Cretaceous fo Germany. Finally, it is true that the term "siliceous earth" appears in Neuendorf et al. (2005) "Glossary of Geology, 5th edition". However, I am having a difficult time finding where it is used in the scientific literature despite searching through various databases and search engines. Its use in geology seems to be extremely limited. I can find it only in restricted sets of publications, such as those 1. about the geology and archaeology of Olduvai Gorge that cite Richard Hay's 1975 book, Geology of Olduvai Gorge; 2. about the radiolarites of Barbados and published between the 1800s and early 1900s; 3. about the stratigraphy of the Barmer basin, Rajasthan, India; and so forth. The usage of "siliceous earth", with some exceptions, appears limited to commercial matters, including tariff tables, and ceramic and related types of engineering. Paul H. (talk) 03:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions here, now we are really having a good talk about what we can find about this in often-used scientific sources.
I like the idea to have an article about the Wellheim Formation that mentions the Neuburg deposit as a member and also has something about its commercial exploitation.
So let's give up Draft:Siliceous earth for the time being.

I was bold and created Draft:Wellheim Formation, transferring the relevant content and sources we already had in the other draft.
Please have a look and state your opinions. Also don't be hesistant to edit if you think you can improve what we already have there. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 14:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you think that we can use Sealife, 2013 to get a source for the current "other sources assert a biogenic origin for the material" statement?
It's a long article, but freely available to read online or as a PDF. I'm planning on reading it within the next days. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 06:24, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Ok, ok sorry: It's in the first sentence of their abstract. I'll just cite the abstract. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 07:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

And.... it's an article! *pops a champagne bottle*
Thanks for all your support and contributions in this successful attempt to avoid WP:PROMO. I feel the current text is quite good at aiming for a neutral point of view, mentioning the producer's claims but putting them into the context of mainstream research. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 09:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Vanamonde93 who closed the AfD debate for Neuburg siliceous earth said on their talk page that it would be ok if I ask here for a volunteer to do the merge with Wellheim Formation.
I'm sorry, I don't feel that it would be the right thing for me to do it myself, under the current circumstances. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 10:57, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks again for doing the move, Hemiauchenia.
I don't want to go on your nerves too much, but now I need help with accessing a pay-walled source. Please see my explanation on the talk page. --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 05:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Another thing remains to be decided to wrap up the consequences of the deletion of Neuburg siliceous earth:
What about Draft:Siliceous earth now?
My current feeling is that it should rather be deleted: Even looking at this very section's discussion, there were several different opinions about an exact definition and the common-ness of its scientific use.
Do you think it is possible to get a consensus about what a possible article Siliceous earth should say about its scientific definition? And would it be worth the effort to try and write it, given that it isn't really in scientific use anymore, in my (rather un-studied) opinion? --ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 14:37, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  1. ^ Schneider, Simon; Jager, Manfred; Kroh, Andreas; Mitterer, Agnes; Niebuhr, Birgit; Vodrazka, Radek; Wilmsen, Markus; Wood, Christopher J.; Zagorsk, Kamil (2013-12-01). "Silicified sea life – Macrofauna and palaeoecology of the Neuburg Kieselerde Member (Cenomanian to Lower Turonian Wellheim Formation, Bavaria, southern Germany)". Acta Geologica Polonica. 63 (4): 555–610. doi:10.2478/agp-2013-0025. ISSN 0001-5709.

FAR for Geology of the Bryce Canyon area

I have nominated Geology of the Bryce Canyon area for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t · c) buidhe 07:01, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The proper featured article review is here. Volcanoguy 06:14, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Fissure primary topic

Please join Talk:Fissure (disambiguation)#Primary topic of whether Fissure related to anatomy is really a primary topic. Editors here probably would agree it is not since Fissure pertains to geology as prominently if not moreso.Coastside (talk) 21:02, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Ghughua Fossil Park & Mandla Plant Fossils National Park

From what I can find Mandla Plant Fossils National Park seems to be a made up park, probably created by the initial article author, A quick look at google maps shows that the purported location of the park is actually the location of the Ghughua Fossil Park. I suggest either wholesale deletion of this article, or redirection and history merge into Ghughua Fossil Park. I'm notifying recent editors of that article and relevant wkiprojects.--Kevmin § 01:32, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Rhyolite

The Rhyolite article seems to me to be within striking distance of a GA nomination, if that kind of thing matters to you. Good article status does offer the opportunity to link the article in the daily "Did you know?" section. Would appreciate any comments on what more is needed. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 01:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

GAs and FAs seem to be more of a thing at WP Volcanoes. Volcanoguy 03:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

"Cleanup on Aisle 7"

I discovered several paragraphs of flagrant copyright violation (word for word copies of Stern 2005) at Oceanic trench. I've cut everything I could find that was copied from that source and asked for a reversion delete, but would appreciate other eyeballs looking for copyvios by the same editor of possibly different sources (User:Zyzzy, who apparently racked up quite a history before dropping from the scene in late 2005). Meanwhile, the article is badly cut up and bleeding, and probably needs some significant rewriting. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 00:16, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

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