Talk:Carboniferous Limestone

Misuse of term

Carboniferous limestone is not a "type of limestone" -- the word as applied to the cited location refers to the age of the rock, Carboniferous, not its composition. Geologyguy 17:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This article needs substantial re-wording to become fully descriptive of the Carboniferous Limestone as a whole and not just of selective areas.
Geopersona (talk) 21:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe the article ought to be re-cast as 'Carboniferous Limestone' ie upper case C and L as per use of the term by the British Geological Survey - see 'Lithostratigraphical framework for Carboniferous successions of Great Britain (onshore) Research Report RR/07/01 available for download from www.bgs.ac.uk The 'Carboniferous Limestone' is designated as a 'supergroup' and is thus 'a type of limestone'. It has long been used in this sense in Britain - but perhaps not elsewhere. cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:05, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Wider geographical focus required

The article as it currently stands is still somewhat Yorkshire-centric. The Dales provide a classic karstic landscape but there's much more to the Carb Lime than the Dales - a fact which the article doesn't yet do full justice to. I may get around to providing more balance unless someone beats me to it. cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I've now added significant additional material on the occurrence of the Carb Lime throughout GB. Someone else may care to build up material on its extent in Ireland. cheers Geopersona (talk) 20:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

New title for article

I intend to ask for this article to be renamed as 'Carboniferous Limestone' ie upper case 'C' and 'L' so as to bring it into line with other proper names for rock units such as the 'Old Red Sandstone' (and not the 'Old red sandstone'). The content of the article clearly relates not to 'Carboniferous limestone' ie any carbonate rock dating from the Carboniferous Period from anywhere in the world but to the rocks of the 'Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup' across Great Britain as defined by the British Geological Survey. We are thus talking about The Carboniferous Limestone not simply any old Carboniferous limestone(s). Discussion please. cheers Geopersona (talk) 05:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. The specific nature of this carboniferous limestone (and its capitalization in about half of cited sources) indicate that capitalization is desirable. Miniapolis 14:59, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

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Carboniferous limestone → Carboniferous Limestone – This article is not simply about limestone of Carboniferous age - such an article would be of limited merit. Rather it is about the specific rock unit long recognised in Britain which is now formally accorded the status of supergroup. As such it constitutes a proper name - an alternative (and more formal) title would be Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup but that would be cumbersome for the wider WP readership and mention of that name is best made within the body text of the article, as with the older name 'CL Series' Relisted. BDD (talk) 18:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Geopersona (talk) 10:14, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – quite a number of good geography, geology, and other books capitalize Carbonifeous but not limestone when talking about this layer in the British Isles. Here's one; here's another; and another; and another. Per MOS:CAPS, this suggests that capitalization is unnecessary, so in WP style we stick with lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree that usage in sources supports a lowercase "l". See this Google Books search, and this ngram, which collectively show that in recent literature, lowercase is nearly as prevalent as uppercase, and when usage in titles is removed, lowercase predominates. Dohn joe (talk) 16:32, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

True, but my point was that you can steer clear of any potential argument about which "predominates" by following the guideline in MOS:CAPS about using caps only for things "consistently capitalized in sources". Dicklyon (talk) 19:53, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS also says "Proper names of specific places, persons, terms, etc. are capitalized in accordance with standard usage." Wouldn't we determine standard usage through a survey of reliable sources? The other, thornier issue is in defining "consistently capitalized" and "standard usage" in this context. Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Sure, where standard usage is to capitalize, that will be apparent from pretty consistent capitalization in sources; I don't know any proper names that wouldn't show up capitalized in 99% of sources (excepting a few performer trademarks like k.d. lang and some genericized names like santorum). When sources are pretty mixed (opposite of consistent) then we use lowercase; no "vote" needed; like manifest destiny. Yes, it's thorny to decide where to draw the line, and we've avoided trying. But this case isn't near the line, which was my only point in commenting. Thanks for your comments. Dicklyon (talk) 22:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support as it is a formally named geological unit, see this BGS search. Of course a random search will return uncap'd results in geography and building stone references ... so the context is important. This article is describing the formally named geologic formation or group of formations and the specific stratigraphic name is capitalised. Vsmith (talk) 20:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

  It is neither surprising nor relevant that the British Geological Society has a style that capitalizes the concepts dear to their field. This is very typical (see WP:SSF). But WP has a different style, and it's not like it's at odds with common usage, is it? And the books I linked are all in the context of Britain's Carboniferous limestone, are they not? Dicklyon (talk) 21:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Wikipedia is a generalist source, not written specifically for experts or for one particular field. If geographers use lowercase, then that's a valid set of sources to consider, as long as what they're discussing is the same formation the geologists are discussing. Further, even if something has an official name, Wikipedia does not default to the official name, but uses a subject's WP:COMMONNAME, with orthography further informed by our Manual of Style. Dohn joe (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Use of CL (ie 2 caps) allows the more careful writer and their readers to distinguish between i) a specific limestone rock unit (the Carboniferous Limestone) which appears across Britain and ii) limestone rocks found anywhere in the world (including Britain) which happen to be of Carboniferous age (Carboniferous limestone). WP:COMMONNAME says 'In determining which of several alternative names is most frequently used, it is useful to observe the usage of major international organizations, major English-language media outlets, quality encyclopedias, geographic name servers, major scientific bodies, and notable scientific journals.' 'Carboniferous Limestone' is the approach more often taken by the writers of the more authoritative texts, both in print and on the web. Neither they nor I would refer to Jurassic Limestone or Devonian Limestone - those would be quite inapproprate. On the other hand they and I would refer to 'Carboniferous limestone' if there were rock of that type in the British Carboniferous succession, other than within the particular bit of the succession which is named the CL. Shouldn't arguments deployed from MOS and WP:SSF be used to improve clarity within WP rather than to muddy the waters? Sure, WP is not written for experts but surely experts can help to inform and if that means using clearer language, is that really such a bad thing? cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:17, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• The Ngram shows the capitalized version dominant roughly in the second half of the Victorian era, but more of a tie in recent times. I would lean towards sentence case if all else is equal, though I don't really know enough to take a position here. --BDD (talk) 18:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support - "Carboniferous Limestone" is the name of a specific limestone rather than just a description of its age. For example in the same way as Old Red Sandstone. Also, whilst the lower case "Carboniferous limestone" is almost equally prevalent in reliable sources as some user have pointed out with WP:COMMONNAME, it is perfectly acceptable to choose another common name i.e. "Carboniferous Limestone". Cal Umbra 19:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support rename because this article is about a particular stratigraphic unit named "Carboniferous Limestone", not generically about limestone of the Carboniferous. Named stratigraphic units are conventionally treated as proper nouns and it is clear from sources like http://www.bgs.ac.uk/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?pub=CL that "Carboniferous Limestone" is a recognized name for a stratigraphic unit. While the Carboniferous Limestone is currently designated a Supergroup, it would not be appropriate to call this article "Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup" because the name has been applied historically without appending that word and is still generally used without the "supergroup" attachment. (Similar to Potsdam Sandstone in North America, the term "Carboniferous Limestone" was once applied to a number of limestones that are now recognized as different formations, but the old name is still applied to the whole collection.) With respect to the assertion that some scientific sources use the term "Carboniferous limestone", see column one on page 17 of this scientific paper -- in one paragraph there, both "Carboniferous Limestone" and "Carboniferous limestones" are mentioned -- the first referring generically to limestones of Carboniferous age and the second referring to this particular rock unit. --Orlady (talk) 00:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support - This lithostratigraphic name refers to a specific rock unit, not all limestones of Carboniferous age. I've taken a look at the Google Book results (well the first 100 anyway) and find that 43 use CL, 41 use Cl (of which 14 are GCSE geography texts, 12 refer to the specific rock unit and 15 refer to limestones of Carboniferous age in general) and 16 use cl (which is obviously not an option here). Unfortunately GCSE Geography texts are not terribly reliable - they all claim that tectonic plates consist only of crust, ignoring the important mantle component (the GCSE Physics texts have it right though), so I'm not inclined to put any weight on them. That leaves 43 v. 12 as I see it. As far as the ngram results are concerned - the Cl results will undoubtedly include the more general usage. Mikenorton (talk) 12:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This article is not about a limestone named Carboniferous as the current title implies. It's about Carboniferous Limestone; Limestone is a component of its proper name, and so should be capitalized too. --B2C 14:57, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

For the record, the close rationale "The specific nature of this carboniferous limestone (and its capitalization in about half of cited sources) indicate that capitalization is desirable" does not support the move decision. The guidelines at MOS:CAPS are clear:

Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names or for acronyms. Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia.

The inconsistent capitalization in sources suggests that this is NOT a proper name. WP prefers to avoid unnecessary capitalization. Many topics have a "specific nature" without being proper names, and many topics are capitalized within special interest communities without being capitalized in WP (see WP:SSF). Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

References

Fossils

• Nothing is said about fossils found in Carboniferous Limestone. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

It's probably better for fossils to be discussed in the articles about the specific formations that are grouped together in the Carboniferous Limestone Supergroup. --Orlady (talk) 00:12, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Images

I think the article would benefit from some better representative images on a macro- and micro- scale ie landscape and perhaps fossils - borings by Jurassic organisms isn't so relevant as it might be - it tells us little about Carboniferous Limestone. cheers Geopersona (talk) 16:30, 4 January 2015 (UTC)