Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology/Archive 6

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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)

• A first draft of the essay is at User:Ikluft/essay/Categorization of craters. Assuming discussion goes well, I'll eventually propose to move it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Essays/Categorization of craters. There isn't currently an "Essays" subpage. But it seems creating one is as good as just dropping it directly in the WikiProject's namespace. Ikluft (talk) 11:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

 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)

•  Note: discussion also took place at WikiProject Volcanoes talk page where I posted an FYI about this. Some updates to the essay were made due to that discussion. Ikluft (talk) 18:21, 14 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)