Talk:Geology of North America

DYK nomination

Hmm... I would assume you meant "one shield" rather than "on shield"? Typos are fun. Vsmith (talk) 14:06, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

They are ;). Fixed it. Thanks. --Tobias1984 (talk) 14:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Canadian shield

I've removed the following:

province of Grenville sedimentary rocks metamorphosed into marble, quartzite, and gneiss and later intruded by granite and gneiss.<ref name = Wallace1948>{{cite web|title = Geology of Canada|last = Wallace|first = Stewart|date = 1948|url = http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/GeologyofCanada.htm|accessdate = 10 Mar 2013}}</ref>

and replaced it with a rather simple introductory sentence.

The sentence removed was rather garbled and sourced to a 1948 book which was written in the 1930s. The problematic ref was written before current understanding of Precambrian geology, we shouldn't depend on ancient sources. Vsmith (talk) 20:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Section Names

Tobias asked me to come in and look over the names for geological versus physiographic origin (or is it orogen?). Now, it's difficult to come up with good names for the orogens, as many underwent numerous orogenies. The names I used came mostly from [1]. As for actually changing the names: the coast section under American Cordillera could easily be renamed Active Margin, besides that, names get harder. Sevier Belt, Laramide Belt, Sevier-Laramide Belt, and Sevier-Laramide Orogen all return some google results, like this [2] and this [3] and could replace Rocky Mountains, but I don't know that any could be considered common. Besides which, the Laramide Orogeny also occurred in the Sierra Madre and the Basin and Range. The Appalachian Mountains appear to have no well known orogenic name, the Grenville Orogen should include parts of Mexico and the Ouachita Mountains, and intermontane province appears interchangeable with basin and range province, neither of which is truly geological, although basin and range at least is telling about the origin of the province. Southern Cordillera is not even really a province name, as that section needs expansion so that it divides up the Sierra Madre Occidental Ignimbrite province, the Sierra Madre Oriental Fold and Thrust Belt, the Trans-Mexico Volcanic Belt, and the Jalisco Block, Chortis Block, and Chorotega Block. Overall, I feel as if I have written too much to say nothing useful. --Al Climbs (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Alright, I put a little more thought into it. Appalachian fold and thrust belts has some google hits and is suggestive of the geology. [4] provides a good map of the canadian shield provinces, taking after Hoffman1988 (also in [5]), if we want more detail there. On the West coast, Fuentes [6] uses the North America Cordilleran orogenic system instead of American Cordillera. Decelles [7] uses Laramide Belt for the Rockies and reserves Sevier Fold and Thrust belt for the mountains from the Canadian Rockies through the Tetons and Unitas. This would take more division of the Cordillera than we have or have space for. Perhaps we could use Laramide Fold and Thrust Belt, Laramide Foreland and Sevier Fold and Thrust belt, and the Active Margin, for the Rockies, Intermontane, and Coast Ranges.--Al Climbs (talk) 21:51, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I know too little about the North American Geology to be really helpful, but looking at your sources I would say that "Rocky Mountains" is both a geologic and geographic term. I really don't understand how they are grouped and subdivided, but maybe I can do some reading on the weekend. --Tobias1984 (talk) 05:34, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I am confused about what you are trying to do? The orogenies and the mountain belts already have names. Why don't you use those? You want to rename the Coast Ranges and the Rocky Mountains? Why? This article is very unclear. -68.107.137.178 (talk) 04:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how how much you know about geology. So I hope I am not answering this at the wrong level of understanding: The Alps for example are a geographic term for a connected mountain chain. In regional geology they are split into the Western Alps and Eastern Alps because they are the products of two different continental collisions. The geologic and geographic definitions are always different. The thing is are the differences large enough for an encyclopedic entry. --Tobias1984 (talk) 07:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm a paleontologist, so, I'm a geologist. -68.107.137.178 (talk) 08:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Excellent. I think in that case my answer would be that right now our subdivisions are a little unsourced. In the Geology of Russia entry we had a couple of books that had chapters after which we named the headings. There is one book about the regional geology of north america which I have yet to order and read. Maybe your library has it? It would shed some light on how the subdivisions of regional geology are commonly drawn in North America.
By the way: Why don't you sign up for an account. With 20k+ articles in the earth sciences we can always use people that are interested. Also sign up here if you like: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology ;) --Tobias1984 (talk) 08:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

They are more like completely unsourced, and you appear to be making up names for mountain ranges, you don't consistently use the same term for the same thing, your maps don't use the words you use, you have titles that don't include any content about the title, your paragraphs are jumbles from Proterozoic to Mesozoic to Paleozoic, you mix up modern structures with ancient processes as if they are the same thing. This article is completely unreadable and should be gutted in its entirety until the editors figure out what they are talking about. What book? I'm a geologist, my library has hundreds of books about the regional geology of North America. Do you have an ISBN? One can edit without an account. Not interested. -68.107.137.178 (talk) 08:56, 1 May 2013 (UTC)