User talk:GeoWriter/sandbox

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Hi GeoWriter,

I think, you did a very good job. I appreciate your translation. There are only a few minor corrections to be made. This is

• Intro
  • I think the term “continental shelf” should be accompanied by the term “epicontinental seas” because most people associate “shelf” with an area at the continental margin. The Zechstein Sea and the Muschelkalk Sea, however, were lying farther inland and had only small connections to the adjacent oceans so these were not shelf seas in a strict sense.
• Regional geological framework and foundations
  • I would translate “Grundlagen” as “basics” rather than as “foundations”.
  • The term “Dehnung” should rather be translated as “crustal extension”, because “strain” AFAIK is just a physical property and it can also be compressive. Unfortunately, you're already using the adjective “extensive” to characterize the sedimentation. Here we should find an alternative adjective, e.g. “substantial”, or find an alternative circumscription.
• Physiographic regions
  • The term “Saxothuringian Zone” is restricted to the variscan basement and it should not be used in a physiographic sense (besides that, the Hartz Mountains belong to the Rhenohercynian Zone, not to the Saxothuringian Zone). A more appropriate translation would be “Saxon and Thuringian blocks” or “Mid-German blocks” and maybe it should be noted that the former is not to be confused with the Saxothuringian Zone of the variscan basement.
  • Maybe it would be better to translate “Hochschollen” and “Tiefschollen” as “upfaulted blocks” or “uplifted blocks” and „subsided/non-uplifted blocks“, respectively. Some of these low lying bocks are indeed downfaulted such as the Rhine grabens (indicated by their young sedimentary cover), others are just not uplifted or at least less uplifted that the uplifts with exposed variscan basement. However, it is impotant to note that entire southern Germany has been uplifted to a certain degree during the late Tertiary, including the downfaulted blocks.
  • The Upper Rhine Plain should be referred to as Upper Rhine Graben.
• Geological levels
  • I think the term “Stockwerk” should be mentioned here, because it is a technical term in the German literature. On the other hand “Ur-Europa” is a rather colloquial term that does not have to be cited; “Proto-Europe” is fine.
  • I would reword the sentence “In the oldest folded Variscan rocks, effects of another, older orogeny, the Cadomian orogeny, have been detected which occurred, however, before the accretion of the crustal blocks of Proto-Europe [...]” as follows: “In the oldest Variscan rocks, another, older orogeny, the Cadomian orogeny, is evident which occurred, however, before the accretion of the crustal blocks of Proto-Europe [...]”.
  • “Grundgebirgsaufbrüche” should be translated as “basement uplifts” not “basement fractures”.
  • Schiefergebirge: slate mountains or slate belts? Not easy to answer. “Gebirge” in a geological context is somewhat ambiguous in German because it can have two meanings: On one hand, in a geomorphological sense, it means “mountains” or “mountain range”, on the other hand it means bedrock (adopted from German mining terminology). To draw an even more confusing picture: In the term „Schiefergebirge“ both meanings can fuse as long as it is part of the name of geographical or regional geological entities: Rheinisches Schiefergebirge, Thüringisch-Fränkisch-Vogtländisches Schiefergebirge, both are mountaineous areas the bedrock of which is composed mainly of slaty rocks. In this case the translation should be “slate mountains”. But with reference to the bedrock only, the translation should be “slate belts”.
  • “Diabas” is a similarly tricky term. Traditionally in German it refers to a basaltic Paleozoic submarine volcanic (effusive!) rock that has undergone weak metamorphosis (or a strong diagenetic overprint, just as you like). It is set in quotation marks in “my” German text because in the last years there were efforts to abandon the usage of “Diabas” in favour of “Metabasalt” to bring the german terminology closer to the international standard terminology. However, I don't like that much because the suffix “meta-” suggests a relatively extensive metamorphosis and one might wonder where the metabasalt comes from within all those unmetamorphosed rocks... Nevertheless, in an English text these rocks should be referred to as “metabasalt” or, perhaps better, “altered basalts”.
  • I think “anstehend” here should be translated as “outcropping”, because “in-situ” might be confused with “autochthonous”.
  • The sentences “In northern Germany, there are isolated salt domes, which have been forced to the surface and eroded down to the older layers of the Mesozoic platform. Elsewhere, erosion-resistant rocks form small isolated ridges, especially in the northern Harz foreland region” should be reworded as follows: “In northern Germany, individual blocks have been forced up by salt domes, and have been eroded down to the older layers of the Mesozoic platform. Erosion-resistant bedrock on these blocks form small isolated ridges, especially in the northern Harz foreland region.”
  • I think “foothills” can be replaced by “foreland”, because this is a common geological term.
• German Alps
  • I think, it should read that the sedimentary wedge was incorporated into the orogen / alpine fold belt / alpine nappes.
  • I'm not happy with the last sentence yet. Is “recognized” really a correct translation of “erfassen” in the sense in that it is meant (i.e. to be included, to be catched, to be captured)? I believe that [...] the Eastern Alps were affected by the Alpine Orogeny and the rocks of the Northern Limestone Alps were stacked and transported to the north, to their present position, overriding the Helvetic and Penninic domains. is a more appropriate translation.
• Economic geology
  • Here indeed a translation of the text of the section Geologischer Hintergrund from the German article Bergbau in Deutschland could be placed.

That's all. Cheers! --Gretarsson (talk) 23:04, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello Gretarsson,

Thanks for checking my English translation and for writing your comments and corrections. I found them very helpful.

Based on your comments. I made changes to the text of the article. I hope that I made all the requested changes, and now I invite you read the revised text of the article, please. Now I have some comments and questions for you.

• Introduction

You wrote that "“continental shelf” should be accompanied by the term “epicontinental seas”." Your original German text included only "Flachmeeren" for seas. Are you suggesting that Flachmeeren means continental shelf and epicontinental seas or only one of these terms? If only one, which one? Does your comment mean you have decided to include this as a change to add to our German text of 04 January? I changed "continental shelf" to "epicontinental seas". Is this correct or would "continental shelf and epicontinental seas" be better?

• • Upper Rhine Plain / Upper Rhine Graben

On English Wikipedia, Upper Rhine Graben redirects to Upper Rhine Plain, which may imply that "Plain" is the more widely used English term for the geographic/physiographic area. Therefore, I used Upper Rhine Plain for the geographic/physiographic area and Upper Rhine Graben for the geological structure. Any comments?

• Geological levels

• • Slate mountains / slate belt

I hope that I have correctly used "slate mountains" for the geomorphological aspects of the hills and "slate belt" for the geological aspects.

• • “Diabase”

This is also complicated by the American use of diabase for dolerite :) I am familiar with the German use of diabase for altered basalt – it’s the same as in my country and this use of diabase is now also officially discouraged here. I changed the text to use the term “altered basalt”. I avoided using “metabasite” for the reasons you wrote and also because there is not a “Metabasite” article in English Wikipedia now. Also, in English Wikipedia, “Metabasalt” currently redirects to the Amphibolite article, which is actually only a special case of metabasite. (I plan to fix that because it is not a sensible redirect).

• German Alps

You wrote “it should read that the sedimentary wedge was incorporated into the orogen / alpine fold belt / alpine nappes.” Can you confirm if you want me to include all 3 terms or to choose only 1 of 3?

• • • Foothils / foreland

My translation now uses "foothills" for the geomorphological feature and "foreland" for the geological feature.

• • Erfassen

I agree that the translation should be “to include”, “to contain” or something similiar. I agree that “recognised” is not correct. I think I mistakenly confused it with “erkennen” when I was translating this sentence :)

Now some questions about some things that still make me uncomfortable about my English translation:

• Stockwerk

For many years, I have had difficulty trying to find a good English translation for “Stockwerk”. I have used “level” in my translation. I have seen other translations, including “layer”, but I avoided this possibility because I wanted to avoid any possible confusion with metre-scale strata. I would be interested to discover any other possible English translations that you may know for “Stockwerk”. Perhaps I could improve "level" by adding an adjective: "crustal level". Any comments?

• Photos of German Limestone Alps

Your German description for these photos is “Deutsche Kalkalpen. Oben: Gebankte Karbonate des Wettersteinkalks (Mitteltrias) im Gipfelbereich der Zugspitze. Unten: Gebankte Kalksteine des Dachsteinkalks (Obertrias) an der Ostwand des Watzmanns.” I translated “gebankte” as “banked”. I’m not satisfied with my translation because I don’t remember seeing “banked” used as an adjective in sedimentary geology in English. I have the feeling that these two photos are examples of reefs or carbonate platforms (de: Karbonatplattform). Am I correct? I see that the German article de: Riffkalk mentions Wettersteinkalk, so perhaps a better translation in English is “reef”, used as an adjective? Reef is a very common English adjective for carbonates. Or another possibility is “bedded” , “stratified” or “layered” because “gebankte” in German Wikipedia article de:Wettersteinkalk redirects to de: Bank (Geologie) which describes beds, strata and layers. Perhaps, for Wettersteinkalk, I should combine both terms as "bedded reef carbonate"?

• Mesozoic platform and Cenozoic platform

I translated “Mesozoisches Deckgebirge” and “Känozoisches Deckgebirge” as “Mesozoic platform” and “Cenozoic platform”. I was influenced to use “platform” because de:Deckgebirge has an inter-wiki link to Platform (geology) and the definitions in both articles share some geological characteristics. My typical use of “platform” in English, outside Wikipedia, however, is usually for Archean Proterozoic structures around older shields e.g. the East European Platform around the Baltic Shield, which has an equivalent German article de:Russische Tafel which includes the alternative German names "Russische Plattform", "Osteuropäische Tafel" and "Osteuropäische Plattform". Why is "Deckgebirge" not used in German for the Russian/East European structure? This suggests to me that, perhaps, "Deckgebirge" for the Mesozoic and Cenozoic of Germany may not be a platform after all, and perhaps another possible English translation for “Deckgebirge” may be better. Alternative English words include ”cover” or “overburden”. Any comments?

That's all the questions I can think of at the moment. I hope you can help me with these. Thanks GeoWriter (talk) 00:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi GeoWriter,

I'm fully satisfied with your latest changes. I'll try my best to answer your questions:

• „Flachmeer“ simply means „shallow sea“. It includes both, marginal and epicontinental shallow seas. In a sedimentological context „shelf“ is often used as a facies term (neritic facies) whithout any implication whether this depositional environment was situated at a continental margin or not and whether the “shelf” was bordered by oceanic or continental crust (hence, even within an epicontinental/cratonic basin shelf areas and basinal/deep sea areas are distinguished). But because geographers use the term “shelf” almost exclusively with reference to the submerged continental margins of today, using the term shelf alone in the introduction may be misleading to the reader. Indeed there are also sedimentary rocks in Germany that were deposited on open/marginal shelves, that are the Paleozoic sandstones/“quarzites” and carbonates of the variscan slate belts and the rocks of the German Alps. Thus, I would recommend that you use both terms, shelf and epicontinental sea.
• German Alps: I think, that it doesn't make a big difference which one you use. So just choose the one you like most.
• Stockwerk: Would say “crustal level” is a good translation but level alone would also be OK, anyway better than “layer”.
• Banked: AFAIK “gebankt” is best translated with “thickly bedded”. A “Bank” is a thick bed (decimeter to meter scale) that consists of rock that is relatively resistant to weathering and erosion so that less resistant interbeds form conspicius “gaps” between two such “Bänke” in an outcrop. There can be a few “Bänke” within a thick succession of less resistant rock but there can also be a dense succession of “Bänke” separated by thin interbeds. The latter is the case in both photographs of Alpine limestones. According to the German WP article, the limestones exposed at the summit of the Zugspitze represent the lagoonal facies of the Wettersteinkalk, so that fits quite good to the bedding pattern observed in the photo. The same applies for the Dachsteinkalk of the Watzmann. A reefal facies would appear massive rather than bedded.
• While “Plattform” in German is almost exclusively used for the Phanerozoic cover of cratonal areas, “Tafel” or “Tafeldeckgebirge” is also used for the unfolded sedimentary cover of the peripheral, post-Precambrian accreted areas of a continent. I don't really know which is the best fitting term in English. Which word is used for equivalent strata in Britain? I think “cover” fits best. “Overburden” I would only use in a mining context or so and “cap rock” also doesn't seem to be appropriate in this case.

Hope, that helps. Cheers. --Gretarsson (talk) 13:15, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Your comments are very helpful, thanks.

I found many examples of platform for Mesozoic sedimentary formations in English articles and books, therefore I'll keep my translation of ""Deckgebirge" as "platform".

I'll publish this translation on English Wikipedia soon. GeoWriter (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2016 (UTC)