Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology

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Candidate for AFD - "Inverted Earth"

I proposed the Inverted Earth to be a prime candidate for AFD because the concept of an "inverted Earth" to be a trivial, non notable idea lacking any real scientific application. It started as art project on Deviant ART and then made its way to Youtube via Reddit and a couple of news articles. There is a lack of any peer-review sources in secondary and tertiary sources that establish it as anything notable. Paul H. (talk) 20:24, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I think you might want to take it to wikiproject art for a bit? seems more notable as an artwork than a geological thought experiment to me. --Licks-rocks (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I posted about it in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts Paul H. (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

As that got no reaction, I intend to take it to AfD somewhere in the next week. ^.^ --Licks-rocks (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

@Licks-rocks:I guess I will have to bite the bullet and take it to AfD. Paul H. (talk) 20:31, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Low island vs. coral island

Low island and coral island seem to be covering the same topic and should probably be merged, preferably to the latter article. Am I missing something here? Volcanoguy 18:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Not that I can find. In the latest AGI Glossary of Geology, as defined in the Pacific Ocean, a "low island" is specially defined as "...a coralline rather than a volcanic island." In contrast, a "high island" in the Pacific Ocean, refers to a volcanic island. Paul H. (talk) 03:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree that they should be merged to the latter name. It's finally jogged by memory to make a move request for moving High island to "Volcanic island" for the same reasons. Mikenorton (talk) 21:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

• added a merge template linking to this discussion. I agree with the suggested merge. Fun case of synonymous definitions! ----Licks-rocks (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 17:09, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Accessibility of Infobox rockunit

Notification of a discussion that may be of interest to this wikiproject - I have made a suggestion here: Template talk:Infobox rockunit#Possible change for colour accessibility, about a possible change to the infobox. Any comments on this would be helpful. EdwardUK (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion has closed with a consensus to implement the change. --Licks-rocks (talk) 17:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

 Implemented — hike395 (talk) 12:22, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

This seems like a great idea. Should we do the same styling for {{Infobox geologic timespan}}? Pinging Benniboi01 — hike395 (talk) 12:28, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Looks great! I had thought about trying something like that for the the geologic timespan infobox but didn't try it. Solves the problem of having to color the text manually, which can be a bit of a pain. Benniboi01 (talk) 21:03, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Satellite image needs?

Hi WikiProject Geology, my name is Naweed and I work for Umbra, a synthetic-aperture radar company. I would love to donate images to improve articles for this project and to be a resource for Wikipedia. Umbra satellites can generate high-resolution images day and night, regardless of cloud cover, storms, and weather conditions. We can take images of almost any location in the world, which can be useful in looking at terrain and geological features, such as the Shungura Formation. I'm excited to see what Umbra can do for the Wikipedia community and I understand that Umbra will get no credit if an image of ours is used in an article. Right now, I'm mostly hoping to gauge interest and if I can be of help and be happy to take image requests (just need the coordinates). I will be making some similar posts at other WikiProjects that I hope could benefit from the imagery as well. Thanks! NT at Umbra (talk) 20:35, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@NT at Umbra: It's not necessarily true to claim that Umbra will get no credit if an image of yours is used in an article. If someone associated with Umbra uploads satellite images on Wikimedia Commons they can select an appropriate license to use. Once an image has been uploaded on Wikimedia Commons it can be used in Wikipedia articles. Volcanoguy 22:08, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@NT at Umbra: I would suggest looking at Category:Wikipedia requested images of places --- a satellite image could be useful in those articles. I would also suggest considering a {{CC-BY-SA-4.0}} license: that would require re-users of your satellite images to give you credit, and require derivative uses to obey the same license. — hike395 (talk) 16:13, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

@NT at Umbra:Articles about different types of landforms and geologic features certainly can use digital elevation models constructed from synthetic-aperture radar, to illustrate classic examples of them. Such DEMs overlain with satellite imagery would be fantastic. Paul H. (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

That's a great tip! I'll take a look. And all of our imagery is openly licensed under CC 4.0. NT at Umbra (talk) 15:20, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Naweed: This sounds great for imaging some inaccessible places that our Earth-bound photographers would not be able to get to. For example a piece of exhumed mantle: Macquarie Island at 54.63°S 158.86°E which is 35 by 5 km. Is that too large? Mount Melbourne is a featured article on a volcano in Antarctica at 74°21′S 164°42′E (is that too far south?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graeme Bartlett (talk • contribs) 22:32, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi Graeme, that's a great idea. Our scene size is currently 4x4 km with resolution options of 25cm, 35cm, and 1 meter. We could image a specific area on the island. I tasked our birds to image Mt. Melbourne. Feel free to continue sending coordinates as well of other places you'd like to image. If you're interested, you can also check out other images in our open dataset. NT at Umbra (talk) 15:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Say, have you already uploaded one of these files somewhere on our projects? I mostly want to see what they look like. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:26, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Graeme Bartlett, Here's the link to the 35 cm SAR image of Mt. Melbourne. If it's not the area you wanted to see of the mountain, let me know the exact coordinates and I can take another image. NT at Umbra (talk) 15:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I suggest some volcanic locations:

• Surtsey, Iceland : 63°18'7.34"N, 20°36'13.24"W
• Laki fissure, Iceland : 64° 4'16.70"N, 18°14'16.65"W
• Thingvellir (Mid-Atlantic Ridge on land), Iceland : 64°15'36.72"N, 21° 7'4.73"W
• Mono-Inyo Craters, California : 37°52'29.42"N, 119° 0'25.29"W

GeoWriter (talk) 19:04, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Some other small locations:

• Darwin Crater a purported meteorite crater in rain forest: 42°18′15″S 145°39′27″E
• Curtis Island part of land bridge from Tasmania to Australia 39°29'S 146°39'E
• Hogan Group also part of land bridge 39°13'S 147°00'E
• Cheung Chau Island near Hong Kong 22°12'38"N 114°01'44"E

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for these suggestions. I'll start working on getting those images. NT at Umbra (talk) 15:50, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Updating design of timespan footers

Wikipedia has a number of navboxes/footers that correspond to geologic time spans, e.g., {{Triassic footer}} or {{Neogene footer}}. The design for these footers was from a consensus from 2018

Over at Template talk:Infobox rockunit, Hemiauchenia brought up the issue that the standard navbox blue clashes with the period color and looks strange. After some experimentation, I found that using a white background with a 2px border with the period color seems to work best. You can see several examples of the new design here. Please take a look and discuss whether you think the new proposal is better or if we should stick with the existing footers.

Pinging involved editors (Kevmin—Abyssal—J. Johnson—RexxS—Redrose64—Graeme Bartlett—Paine Ellsworth—EdwardUK) --- what do you think? — hike395 (talk) 18:46, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

This really looks good, and I would approve this being implemented. The improved contrast with the text improves the legibility noticeably. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:48, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

I can live with it as well, but the yellow-coloured periods are a bit of an issue with this style, because the yellow border almost vanishes against the background.not sure how to solve that 🤔 --Licks-rocks (talk) 19:50, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

One possibility is in Proposal 2, where for those light period colors, we fill the boxes with the color and use black borders? It would fix the problem you mention, but would cause an inconsistency between different time spans. What do you think? — hike395 (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

hmm, I think it might be more an issue with the colour than with the planned style of the boxes. --Licks-rocks (talk) 13:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Both old and proposed look OK to me. But I do agree that the palest yellow is hard to see. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:38, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Design looks good, I think having a consistent look would be best, maybe increasing the borders to 3px could help with the paler colours. EdwardUK (talk) 15:57, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Added 3px borders on the [Geonav test page] just to see what EdwardUK's suggestion would look like. Still undecided about this. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:50, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

The 3px lines look too much to me for the darker colors. We could use 3px for the lighter colors and 2px for the darker ones -- I think that kind of inconsistency would be acceptable. — hike395 (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

I approve of the recently implemented compromise to the rockunit infobox. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:55, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Update: I've updated the examples to show the current proposal, which is the outline style, with 2px borders for the darker colors and 3px for the lighter (Cenozoic) ones. Since discussion has died down without strong objections, I'll start to implement this. I can always revert if there is new controversy. — hike395 (talk) 17:00, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

MEVC peer review

I've nominated the Mount Edziza volcanic complex article for a peer review; comments can be left here. Volcanoguy 19:27, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

New article about putative Malaysian impact structure needs review

An article has been recently created for a putative impact structure, the Bukit Bunuh impact structure. The article is based only on primary sources, conference proceeding and a couple of papers in regional journals, by a single group of researchers without any secondary sources. This article needs to be looked to see it it has sources to qualify as being notable enough for Wikipedia and see that this research is too soon to be in Wikipedia.

The most detailed paper is:

Quek, L.X., Ghani, A.A., Badruldin, M.H., Saidin, M., Harith, Z.Z.T. and Roselee, M.H., 2015. Platinum group elements in proximal impactites of the Bukit Bunuh impact structure, Malaysia. Current Science, pp.2303-2308. Paul H. (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Going by this the topic might meet notability criteria. OTOH the Earth Impact Database doesn't list it and I didn't check any of the sources to see if they are more general. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Input sought: Articles for deletion/Olancha Earthquake Sequence

Please see Articles for deletion/Olancha Earthquake Sequence. Is this something we want to keep? Thanks, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:26, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

left a comment there, Based on the total lack of news articles about it I don't think we do. --Licks-rocks (talk) 12:31, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 17:55, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Sammy2012 GPlates maps

Sammy2012 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been going on a spree of adding GPlates maps to the infoboxes of various geologic time periods. While for time periods closer to the present I think these might be okay, for Mesozoic and Paleozoic geologic periods, the paleogeography was so fundamentally different that in my opinion you can't just get away with cutting and pasting the current map, and it provides a misleading impression of the actual contemporary geography. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:41, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, for long geological time periods where the paleogeography is likely to have changed substantially over the course of the period, it doesn't make sense to pick a single map to be representative of it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:46, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Would you like me to replace them with new maps where continental fragments are assigned a single colour? Sammy2012 (talk) 08:24, 14 August 2023 (UTC)