Talk:Hekla

How big is Hekla?

It´s said that Hekla is 1491 meters in the article itself but in the right side of the page it is says that Hekla is 1488 meters. Which is right? 18:52, 27 november 2008 (UTC)

Hekla is a stratovolcano

Hekla is a stratovolcano, not a tuya (as this page was changed to read). See this page |Global Volcanism Program: Hekla Summary for confirmation, which is a reliable volcanological source published by the Smithsonian.

The cone of Hekla is built up of overlapping lava flows and pyroclastic deposits, which pretty much fits the exact definition of stratovolcano. It did not erupt subglacially, as a tuya must. There do not appear to be any reliable reference sources which state that it is a tuya. Thanks. Seattle Skier 08:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Stamp IS 1948 25a-400px.jpg

Image:Stamp IS 1948 25a-400px.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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— Save_Us † 09:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Bronze Age eruption

I have a source stating unequivocally that Hekla's eruption in 1159 BC had a catastrophic effect on Bronze Age Britain - (see Timeline of prehistoric Scotland) - causing 18 years of bad weather. This is: Moffat, Alistair (2005) Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History. London. Thames & Hudson. I presume this is the same eruption that the Smithsonian reference has as "950 BC(?)". From the reference section Moffat is probably quoting Steven Mithen's (2003) After the Ice, but I don't want to use an historian to correct a geological site without access to a primary source. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 15:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I have a major rewrte of this article on a subpage of mine (that I could really do with getting round to finishing). The agreement between sources on Hekla's ancient eruptions doesn't seem great, I currently have 3 dates for this eruption in the same paragraph, 2 of which are pretty much the same. Anyway if you have a look at User:JMiall/Hekla you can see there's a reference givng 1120±50 BC. I'd be tempted to go with this one just because it gives an uncertainty. JMiall₰ 00:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

OK - I'll leave you to update the article - just so long as I am not out badly of line on the Timeline of prehistoric Scotland. Thanks. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 13:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

There's some discussion of the uncertainty surrounding the date of this eruption in "Excavating words: a geological tool; human histories unravel geological mysteries" by Stefi Weisburd, Science News, 9 Feb 1985. This article quotes two Californian researchers (Pang and Chou) as settling on a eruption date of 1100 B.C., with an uncertainty of +80 years and -60 years, after considering ice-core, radiocarbon and historical dates. This is quite similar to the 1120±50 BC range, and the source cited in User:JMiall/Hekla does seem to refer to Pang's work. (I can't seem to download the full document, so I'm not entirely sure.) -- Avenue (talk) 12:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

So, you guys are actually thinking about changing a 950 BC eruption date that has been established in the scientific literature based on 1) a 1985 news story where some guys are speculating about simply "moving" a radiocarbon date to match their own historical theories and 2) on unreferenced lecture notes put up by some unknown unaffiliated guy who runs a catastrophe website? Neither one is a reliable source in any possible universe. Stuff like this is why Wikipedia has no credibility. GVP Webmaster (talk) 20:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'm happy to put in whatever there is a good citation for. At present the article cites GVP which gives a date of '950 BC ?' with no other information about how well established this is. I have not looked into this in detail other than sticking both dates in my draft article for now but if you have easy access to good, preferably peer reviewed journal or book, references for 950 could add them to the article or post them here? JMiall₰ 02:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The GVP website does give a long list of sources, but it's not obvious to me from their titles which would be a source for the 950 BC date. My comment above aimed to add to what we knew about the source of the 12th century BC eruption dates. I agree the two sources we have so far for this don't seem very strong. -- Avenue (talk) 02:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Expansion

I've copied a major expansion of this article from userspace so for full edit history see that page as well. As I've been working on this for a while I hope that I've managed to incorporate the edits to the article in the meantime, apologies if I have missed a few. JMiall₰ 21:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Automated Peer Review

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• Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.^[?]

Commas removed for consistency

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fixed several

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.^[?] Specifically, an example is 4 km.

1st instance of each unit spelled out. Too many to spell out each one.

• When writing standard abbreviations, the abbreviations should not have a 's' to demark plurality (for example, change kms to km and lbs to lb).

I think this referred to 'mins'. Now fixed

• As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use ^th; for example, instead of (if such appeared in the article) using January 30^th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.^[?]

I think all of these are either quotes or are refering to centuries

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changed to H1

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Not fixed yet

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  • is considered
  • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).^[?]

'is considered' in lead has ref later

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words mentioned above set to British spellings

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'some' fixed, 'a few' - some vagueness necessary here as these are basically quotes, 'several' - fixed, 'many' - I think most of these are OK, 'any','all' - look OK

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I think I have fixed all these

• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

Not yet... JMiall₰ 21:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Units

The peer review for this article has said 'Units need to be consistently in both metric and English units for all measurements / numbers given. {{convert}} may be useful here'

I'm unsure that this will make the article better, particularly the readability of the eruption sections which are currently quite dense with numbers and units. The 1st exception in MOS:CONVERSIONS may apply as this is a scientific article to some extent and I would have thought that converting the 1st instance of each unit should be sufficient. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? JMiall₰ 22:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)