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October 6

Undissected in Geological Terms

I was looking at the article for Mount Kaimon and noticed the term "undissected" being used as a descriptive for the volcano. I'm unfamiliar with this usage of the term and am having trouble finding a clear explanation elsewhere. What's more, there's already a comment on Talk:Mount_Kaimon asking this same question, so there's surely more than just me who doesn't understand. Is there a clearer way to describe what "undissected" means as a descriptor in this article and the other articles that use the same terminology? Amstrad00 (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's one that's not dissected. Dissection in this sense means a volcanic cone that's built up by repeated eruptions, but has since been eroded or otherwise affected by processes other than its own eruption (folding, or being cut through by intrusive igneous features). So an undissected volcano is typically a younger one, either still or relatively recently active.

Here's one description of an old, dissected, volcano: Iddings, Joseph P. “The Dissected Volcano of Crandall Basin, Wyoming.” The Journal of Geology 1, no. 6 (1893): 606–11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30054881. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've added a footnote to the article which resolves my issues as far as keeping things understandable for those unfamiliar with the term. Thanks for your explanation and edit to the article, I'll go ahead and add similar footnotes to the other volcano articles I've found with that term in the lead. Amstrad00 (talk) 03:20, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have created redirects for Dissected volcano and Undissected volcano (and a redirect target: Volcano#Dissection). --Lambiam 16:17, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Watching the gulls eat

I was wondering. Considering that a seagull can swallow a pound of food in about 10 seconds flat and seagulls will fight until bloody over scraps of food - what environment did they evolve into that necessitated this behaviour? Before humans got involved and the gulls came inland and scavenged rubbish and begged for food from people, just how harsh and brutal was their original biome? 146.90.140.43 (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As noted at Gull#Diet_and_feeding, they'll eat just about anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:37, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. A gull will eat just about anything. But I was thinking about how aggressive gulls are with each other when feeding and how fast they eat when food is available. Did they evolve somewhere that necessitated this behaviour? Out at sea? Because there's lots of available food on the sea shore. Cockles, mussels, limpets, crabs, etc. Or maybe the seagulls can't open the shells. 146.90.140.43 (talk) 20:55, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The environment could well be our garbage dumps. Evolution can be rapid and in fact usually is. Here are two articles, Metabolic Adaptation of Certain Seagulls to Our Changing World, and Changing gull diet in a changing world: A 150-year stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) record from feathers collected in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Abductive (reasoning) 22:46, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In their natural environment, I think gulls mostly catch fish and scavenge carcasses floating in the sea. There is one species that does more than that, but it is quite rare when compared to the others. Iloveparrots (talk) 00:19, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's an error to think that Gulls are predominantly sea/ocean dwellers that have "come inland" recently. To quote from that article's lede:

"Gulls are typically coastal or inland species, rarely venturing far out to sea, except for . . .".

And from the Diet and feeding section:

"The food taken by gulls includes fish and marine and freshwater invertebrates, both alive and already dead; terrestrial arthropods and invertebrates such as insects and earthworms; rodents, eggs, carrion, offal, reptiles, amphibians, seeds, fruit, human refuse, and even other birds. No gull species is a single-prey specialist, and no gull species forages using only a single method. The type of food depends on circumstances, and terrestrial prey such as seeds, fruit, and earthworms are more common during the breeding season while marine prey is more common in the nonbreeding season when birds spend more time on large bodies of water."

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 01:01, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Growing up in the English countryside, a flock of gulls following the plough for worms in autumn used to be a common sight. Minimum tillage may have changed that, plus fish and chips. MinorProphet (talk) 09:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gulls seem to be very fond of school playing fields, regardless of their proximity to the sea. I imagine they find creatures like "leatherjackets" (crane fly larvae) and devil's coach horse beetles. Alansplodge (talk) 16:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have about 50 images of that on commons. Card Zero (talk) 05:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]