Talk:Bakken formation#Requested move 1 April 2025

With the science of the connections between fossil fuel extraction, CO2 emissions, and climate change becoming a mature field, it seems that it is time to start including a discussion of the CO2 emissions and the associated climate change impacts associated with full development of the Bakken reserves and the reserves of other large oil/gas producing areas. I can probably start some research on it, but maybe another contributor is more knowledgeable to do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PJD412 (talk • contribs) 20:31, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed Ninjalectual (talk) 01:23, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Why would Oilshalegas.com get a link to their Bakken resource page, and Bakken.com is not allowed in here and was removed as spam being the Largest Bakken related site news site in the world?

Lamicone (talk) 22:24, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Am I confusing extracting "oil in shale" from extracting "oil from shale"? The cost of extracting "oil from shale" is prohibitive. From both a $/barrel viewpoint, and an environmental viewpoint. I think this article needs a section examining this problem.

However if I have confused the two, please disregard that comment, and maybe add a section, for slow people like me, explaining that this is not the same as extracting oil from shale.

Pommerenke (talk) 22:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

:The Bakken is not an oil shale in the usual sense. It is a formation that yields oil with difficulty. In fact the main productive zone is a dolomite. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 01:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. In one section of the article, it says "is expected to ultimately total 270 million barrels", yet in two paragraphs below, it talks about estimates over a billion. Was the estimates really that far off, or was there a typo? Thanks! (sorry, I'm not sure if I'm asking this question in the right place) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.0.166 (talk) 22:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

:The 270 million refers to the ultimate production of Elm Coulee field alone. The higher numbers refer to the entire Bakken play, which may eventually include many fields. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 23:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Could someone update the yield numbers with the timeframes they go with? XX barrels per day/week/year/lifetime. I don't know typical order of magnitude of these things, and suspect many others also do not, and seeing a number without a time period leaves me wondering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.139.54 (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

:"ultimate" means over the life of the well, field, basin, whatever. How long that is, though, is another question. So the information you ask for would be useful - but I don't have it, not right now anyway - will work on it. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 14:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

::This article seems to dwell on how much potential oil is in the Bakken formation, and how much of it is recoverable with very little emphasis on current production. Production has been increasing exponentially since 2004 and current production levels are approaching 10M Bl/yr. http://geology.com/usgs/bakken-formation-oil.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.221.12 (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

:::For any oil production area the most important number is EUR (expected ultimate reserves). Any number of tricks and methods can be used to temporarily increase flow, but the total amount that comes out is what really counts. NJGW (talk) 07:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

::::It seems that this article is only telling part of the story. There may be approximately 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil (using current technology) in the Bakken Formation, but technology is already being developed to substantially increase that and draw on the larger potential. I was able to come up with the following links to support reports that there could be hundreds of billions of barrels of oil available there:

::::[http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/features/ngshock.pdf]

::::[http://bismarcktribune.com/articles/2008/04/29/news/state/154403.txt]

::::[http://www.coscocap.com/articles/downloads/COSCO_2-07.momentum.pdf]

::::[http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS165112+15-Apr-2008+MW20080415]

::::We have already seen the amount of recoverable oil in the Bakken Formation grow over time due to technological advances. According to the Energy Information, the amount of oil in the Bakken Formation is pretty considerable. It has been said that it has enough oil to keep us going through this century.216.116.87.110 (talk) 17:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

:::::The article tells the most recent and informative part of the story. The links you list are a mix of old news and some slight misreadings. The EIA link is early guesses about the Bakkan from 2006, which are repeated in the 2007 coscocap investment position piece. The most recent surveys, from April 2008, scale the total reserves in the Bakkan down by several hundred billion barrels, and the total recoverable amount to 3-4 billion (this is it's not possible to every retrieve all the oil in a given formation, and this oil is particularly difficult to get at). The Bismark Tribune and Reuters articles you have here are referring to those recent surveys, and repeat what I just said. If you look at the lead, you will see that this (most recent government info) is posted in the lead with a link to the original USGS report. NJGW (talk) 21:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I just read a news article that says, "up to 400 billion barrels of light, sweet crude oil for America's future can be pumped from under Manitoba and North Dakota. That's more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia put together." ( http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0408/0408dakotaoil.htm )

Is this author confusing oil with technically recoverable oil? If so, would you describe this article as irresponsible? Or is it merely overly optimistic? Maybe Geologyguy would be so kind as to answer these questions. Thanks 199.46.245.231 (talk) 18:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

:The [http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 USGS estimate] is for 3 to 4.3 billion recoverable barrels. Figures of 300 to 500 billion barrels of oil in place have been tossed around for some time, and just before the USGS report was actually issued, there was much reporting that they would estimate the recoverable reserve in hundreds of billions, which they did not. Perhaps (to be charitable) the article cited above may have been one of those. User RockyMtnGuy is much more familiar with Canadian reserves than I am and may have something to say as well. The bit that I (think) I know about the Bakken would suggest that its facies and thickness as you get into Canada is not likely to return the production rates of Elm Coulee or some of the discoveries in west-central North Dakota. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 19:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

"All researchers agree that the Bakken Formation is a tremendous source rock. The controversy lies with

how much oil has been generated, what other formations it may have sourced, and how much is

ultimately recoverable. Early research on the Bakken started with a 1974 landmark paper by Wallace

Dow, a UND Geology graduate, that addressed the oil generation capacity of the Bakken shale. Since

that time, several additional papers have re-evaluated the Bakken, each bringing its own controversy over

how much oil the Bakken is capable of generating and more importantly, how much of that oil can be

economically produced.

The current controversy involves a paper by the late Dr. Leigh Price formerly of the United States

Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. He was an innovative thinker that challenged many of the

traditional viewpoints of petroleum geochemistry. After an extensive oil sampling program by the North

Dakota Geological Survey showed oil from the Bakken is compositionally distinct, further work,

additional analyses, and many discussions with Dr. Price resulted in the controversial paper under review.

The methods used by Price to determine the amount of hydrocarbons generated by the Bakken and the

idea that the oil has not migrated out of the Bakken are under dispute." from http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/bakken-form-06.pdf WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:We have three different concepts involved here: oil in place versus technically recoverable oil versus economically recoverable oil. The media is assuming that all of the oil in place can be recovered, which is patently rediculous. The Bakken, from all reports, is a very tight formation with very low porosity and permeability. The sweet spots which give the best results only have about a 5% recovery rate, which is much lower than most oil fields. Most of the formation is likely to be closer to 1% recovery, which assuming there are 300 to 500 billion bbl of oil in place, would mean 3 to 5 billion bbl of technically recoverable oil. That sounds rather close to the USGS estimate of 3 to 4.2 billion bbl. And that brings us to the third concept, economically recoverable oil. How much of it can be recovered at a profit? The USGS has a track record of being overoptimistic about economics, so I would tend to assume that most of their technically recoverable oil might turn out not to be economically recoverable. Nobody knows at this point in time.

:From the Canadian perspective, the Bakken extends under southeastern Saskatchewan and is the largest oil field in Saskatchewan, and may well turn out to be the largest conventional oil field in Canada. Which is nice - until you consider non-conventional oil. Canadian oil sands contain at least 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen in place, and a government study estimated 175 billion barrels of it to be economically recoverable assuming much lower prices and much lower recovery rates than oil companies are currently getting. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 07:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The issues you raise are indeed among the important distictions that need to be made to understand the issue here. But it is even more complicated than that. One key change has been that the technologically recoverable oil has increased greatly with the successful development of horizontal drilling. Another key is that the economically recoverable oil is greatly increased with the rise in oil prices. But the main two arguents going on right now among the experts is how much oil has migrated out versus stayed put ("The results of this study were published by Price and LeFever in 1994 and showed that the Bakken is “truly

dysfunctional” with no evidence in the analysis that Bakken-generated oil had migrated into the overlying

Madison beds, as previously thought." http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/bakken-form-06.pdf ) and is the geological model presented by Price accurate or not ("The geological model presented by Price in his paper appears solid and is built upon considerable input

by North Dakota Geological Survey geologists, samples from the ND Core and Sample Library, and the

well files from the Oil and Gas Division.

A sophisticated computer program with extensive data input supplied by the ND Geological Survey and

Oil and Gas Division places the Bakken generated value at 200 – 300 BBbls.

How much of the generated oil is recoverable remains to be determined. Estimates of 50%, 18%, and 3 to

10% have been published.

The Bakken play on the North Dakota side of the basin is still early in the learning curve. Technology

and the price of oil will dictate what is potentially recoverable from this formation." http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/bakken-form-06.pdf ). WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

:Well, one would think that if they had core samples and well logs to look at, they would know how much oil was in the rock. After all, if you can't extract the oil from the rock in the lab, your chances of getting it out in the field are slim. In the case of the Bakken, I think we can take the USGS word that it's there in the rock samples, I think the question is whether it can be extracted at reasonable cost. There are lots of places where oil is still trapped in the source rock, and nobody is ever going to get it out with conventional technology because it just won't move through the rock. You can persuade it by throwing modern technology at it, but there are limits to the number of 10,000 foot deep horizontal wells you can afford to drill at $5 million a pop, and how much hydraulic fracturing you can afford to do on them. The current bump in production in the Bakken is due to horizontal drilling and fracturing, but the wells have a very short producing life, and that is a serious limitation on their profitability. Anyhow, here's a link to an in-depth analysis of the Bakken that I found at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868 Another thought I have is that it took about $1 billion in government research money to get Canadian oil sands technology to its current state (and well worth it at today's oil prices). How much is the U.S. spending on research on the Bakken? Is it spending anything? RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

::Both the national government (United States Geological Survey - Energy Resources Program) and state governments pay for research into oil reserves. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Increasing porosity: if 90% is "non recoverable due to shale layer below and above the dolomite which has a low porosity and does not generate large pools of oil, could one or several "huge" non thermonucear explosion(s) at 3-4000 feet accomplish this? (72.199.180.224 (talk) 21:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC))

:No. It would destroy most of the oil and make the rest radioactive, which would go over badly with consumers. The way to deal with the lack of large pools and low permeability of the reservoir is to drill large numbers of horizontal wells and use hydraulic fracturing (or "fracing") to crack open the formation and allow the oil to flow. This would be an expensive procedure but the USGS believes it would be cost effective at the extremely high prices you are going to pay for the oil. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Saw this semi-fluff story on yahoo news. Could be incorporated into the article in some way.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080630/ap_on_re_us/overnight_millionaires_1

Gront (talk) 14:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

:Nah, like you said: Fluff. Wait until there's something with hard numbers. NJGW (talk) 18:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone needs to write up a section in clear English to dispel some of the hype, rumors and sheer nonsense being circulated on the internet about the Baaken Formation. Yes, this is a substantial formation that, with advanced technology and a whole lot of work, can produce a great deal of oil, but nowhere near the amounts being hyped in floods of e-mail forwards. One message now circulating on the Internet claims the Bakken has "more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today," and suggests the only reason we are not tapping this reserve and making the US energy independent instantaneously is that "OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists." People believe this nonsense, particularly when they are either incapable or unwilling to wade through the technical language and the numbers to figure out the breathless e-mail they received is, on balance, a dangerous fiction. The Baaken Formation is an important find and some people will make a great deal of money from it, but it is not Jed Clampett's miracle. We cannot simply stick a pipe in the ground and get "bubblin' crude." These reserves are difficult and expensive to access and much of it unrecoverable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahgsu (talk • contribs) 11:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

So which companies have leases covering which fields? ie: Which companies stand to profit from these resources? Anyone have a clue?
~ender 2009-07-23 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.167.219.101 (talk) 02:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I just found out recently that I own land on these oil reserves, about 20 acres, with the rest of my family we own a total of about 200-300 acres.

And I was just recently contacted by Bison Resourses Inc. And they are going to start drilling soon on our lands. So I believe Bison Resourses Inc. is one of the companies that are leased to drill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zkmfdmz (talk • contribs) 07:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

:The US oil industry is very fragmented and the Bakken is very big. There are probably hundreds of companies operating in the Bakken and they will be leasing land from thousands of landowners. Most of these companies will be very small (less than a dozen employees) and they operate by partnering with other companies to share the costs. It would cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to sort out all the leases, and the end of it all, you wouldn't have learned anything useful (other than the fact that there are lots of oil companies that you never heard of). RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

::"The leases comprise approximately 1,280 acres (520 ha)" - sounds quite small, either not worth to mention or wrong.Meerwind7 (talk) 03:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Where did the name come from? Is it named after a person named Bakken? If so, the omission of that information from the first paragraph of the article is clearly an error. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The Bakkens were a family that lived on a farm in the 50's where the first Bakken shale producer was drilled, thus the namesake.76.120.114.251 (talk) 03:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I did a first-pass cleanup, as there was considerable confusion in this section. Here's what the various sources are estimating, from a hasty review of the "Bakken Formation Reserve Estimates," a [http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/bakken-form-06.pdf North Dakota state government report]. This report itself has some internal confusion.

• Oil Generation Estimates: these are (theoretical?) estimates of how much oil the organic material in the shale could have produced.
• Oil resource estimates: these are estimates of how much oil might actually be contained in the Bakken formation, whether or not it is potentially recoverable.
• Potentially recoverable oil: oil that may be recoverable at a profit using known technologies. This is a moving target as the producers gain experience with new techniques -- and as the price of oil rises or falls.

This is still a rough and somewhat confusing section, and I'll get back to it when time permits. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC), a mining geologist who knows a little about oil.

:You did remove a bit too much :), I corrected it.--Environnement2100 (talk) 03:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

How much does it currently cost to produce a barrel of crude oil from this formation? Alberta's Tar Sands experienced a big boom when the price of crude shot up. Tar Sands crude cost over $50 per barrel, so production boomed

when the price rose above that.

This article desperately needs the same information.

The article also needs a comparison with other deposits. Saudi Arabia's reserves were used as the yardstick for Alberta and Venezuala's Tar Sands. Both deposits were said to be comparable to Saudi Arabia's deposits. So how does this deposit compare? Geo Swan (talk) 23:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

:Good question. I've heard that a lot of drillers/roustabouts have been told to stand down when the price of oil has hit below $80 a barrel. If so, this is expensive oil.

:I have also heard that they are flaring natural gas and just keeping the crude oil because of the low price of natural gas and the high cost of compressing it, or getting a pipe to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Betathetapi545 (talk • contribs) 13:29, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

::As one who runs economics on Bakken wells every day, I can tell you that there is no "one price fits all" to make Bakken crude economic. There are better and poorer areas in the Bakken, better and poorer areas in the Three Forks (considered part of the Bakken play), different opinions on how much these wells will ultimately produce, and diverging views on how to best drill and complete the wells. The costs to drill, complete, and operate these wells are changing constantly. There are even more variables that I won't go into. It would be very misleading for this article to state any single economic price for Bakken oil. Plazak (talk) 13:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== Why removed the exact monthly figures?? ==

Hello,

I know my English sux, since this is only my "2nd wiki" but I'm asking myself why this passage, which I updated than was removed?

''The state Industrial Commission said crude production in September 2011 totaled 464,122 barrels a day, or nearly 123,000 more barrels than September 2010. Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the state should end 2011 with about 150 million barrels of oil produced.Bakken helps North Dakota surpass oil production record

[http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/bakken-helps-north-dakota-surpass-oil-production-record/article_fa857924-1788-11e1-902a-001cc4c03286.html]. In fact North Dakota produced 152.985 million barrels in 2011, with a strong increase in the last quarter of the year. In December 2012 the record amount of 23.834 million barrels have been produced in North Dakota. North Dakota Production for 2012 was estimated to reach around 200 million barrels. In fact 242.447 million barrels were produced, much more than estimated.[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPND1&f=M EIA: North Dakota Oil Production Figures]''

This is the passage I mean. Today there is of course more actual data available (North Dakota production until September 2013, soon the October 2013 data will follow. The production peaked yet at 28.247 million barrel in August 2013, but the growth will go on and reach the magic number of 1 million barrel per day, which means 30 or 31 million barrel per month. In April 2004 we saw a production of just 2.497 million barrel or 2.405 in April 2003. This were 80,000 barrel per day in 2003, now it is over 900,000 barrel per day and growing! I will read the article now, but if not included I think the problem of transportation should be mentioned...

in mid 2013 I read an article which described that because of shale oil in Texas and North Dakota/Montana the amount of oil transported by oil trucks (usually gas trucks), oil trains and small inland vessels is at a all time high, because there are no pipelines in these areas and to build them does not only cost money, it needs time, which is the best route, get the okay from the authorities and maybe landowners... Kilon22 (talk) 01:40, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

{{reflist-talk}}

[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303640604579294794222692778 Crude-Oil Impurities Are Probed in Rail Blasts] , WSJ 01/02/14

[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303640604579296803233499632 U.S. Issues Warning on Bakken Shale Oil]: Safety Alert Follows Explosions in Train Accidents; Crude May Be More Flammable Than Other Types. WSJ, 1-2-2014.

The article is specifically about Bakken crude (shale oil), which has now been involved in 3 fiery train-wrecks. Regulators are concerned. Most of this info belongs at Bakken or tight oil. There's a bit pertinent to hydraulic fracturing, and I've posted this article at that talk page also.

I'll get tot adding something to articles in a few days. I the meanwhile, if anyone wants full copies of these articles, just ask. Dramatic video also available: flamiig tank cars! --Pete Tillman (talk) 23:10, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

:Mentioned Lac-Mégantic derailment at tight oil. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:17, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

::The Bakken oil is very light and volatile, about the same as gasoline. Crash 77 100 ton tankers of it in a downtown core, and you get quite a fireball. By contrast, most Canadian production today is a very heavy oil called bitumen, which is basically unrefined asphalt. If you want to see how flammable that is, go out to the street in front of your house and try to set it on fire. One of the problems in the Lac Megantic disaster was that the ND oil producers had mislabeled it as less volatile and flammable oil than it actually was. Canadian railways are used to shipments being properly labeled, but in ND standards enforcement seems to range from little to none. See [http://www.dot.gov/briefing-room/dot-issues-emergency-order-requiring-stricter-standards-transport-crude-oil-rail "DOT Issues Emergency Order Requiring Stricter Standards to Transport Crude Oil by Rail] Today’s action marks the 4th emergency order or safety advisory on crude oil in the last seven months".RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

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The statement "Increasing economic prosperity has also brought increasing crime" needs to be reworded probably. Like "However, along with an increase in economic prosperity there has also been in increase in crime," or something like that. The two do not go hand in hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.3.111.95 (talk) 17:14, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

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• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.swiftcurrentonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15626%3Aoil-boom-lets-saskatchewan-plot-its-own-course&catid=39%3Aoil-field-news&Itemid=185

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:32, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I suggest that the recent rename/move of Bakken Formation to Bakken formation by user:Amakuru on 28 November 2023 should be reverted. Bakken Formation is a proper name. By capitalising formation, I think that Bakken Formation is consistent with MOS:CAPS, MOS:PROPERNAME and English grammar. Bakken Formation would be consistent with the article titles of hundreds of other Wikipedia articles about specific geological formations that use Formation not formation in their article title - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Geologic_formations_by_country. GeoWriter (talk) 17:54, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Beginning with the first illustration, little information is included about the formation outside the US. While a later illustration includes the rest of the continent, and there is discussion of the Lac-Megantic disaster, the content is primarily American. Humpster (talk) 04:42, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

{{requested move/dated|Bakken Formation}}

:Bakken formation → {{no redirect|Bakken Formation}} – As suggested by User:GeoWriter, the Bakken Formation is a proper noun and thus should be capitalized. From all the reliable sources I have seen, it is capitalized as well. BappleBusiness^[talk] 21:24, 1 April 2025 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 01:12, 10 April 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 07:54, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:GEOCAPS: as the name of a specific place and geographic feature it is a proper noun and capped. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:54, 2 April 2025 (UTC)
• :The problem with this is that the Bakken Formation is not a specific place or a geographic feature; it's a geologic feature. Geography and geology are two different topics. Volcanoguy 19:58, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Thanks, I wasn't sure how the term is applied. Still Support as a proper name per the comments below and specific place designator. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi {{ping|usernamekiran}} I hope you're well. I'm just wondering why have you moved this page? Ngrams show the two casings at [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bakken+formation+&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true neck and neck in recent sourcing] so it's nowhere near the bar for WP:NCCAPS or MOS:CAPS. The status quo is sentence case here. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 19:39, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:{{re|Amakuru}} Hello. I'm good, nice to see you again. I didn't want to be become involved/biased I relied only on the discussion. I agree with you though. But I am on mobile, so please feel free to undo/relist the move, I can do it from computer, but I am not sure when I will be on computer. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:: relisted. —usernamekiran (talk) 01:12, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per my above comment. The current guidelines require titles to be consistently capitalised in a substantial majority of sources before we treat them as a proper name. Following those guidelines, and the ngram evidence, that bar is not met here because the two options run neck and neck.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:33, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

File:Bakken Stratigraphy.png, is this formation the name of a place or a geological feature? If so, it is uppercased. Members of the geology WikiProject may know, and will alert them of this RM. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:30, 10 April 2025 (UTC)]]

:::According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy on the naming of stratigraphical units: "Capitalization - The first letters of all words used in the names of formal stratigraphic units are capitalized (except for the trivial names of species and subspecies rank in the names of biostratigraphic units). Informal terms are not capitalized." (source: https://stratigraphy.org/guide/defs).

::: Google Books Ngram Viewer shows that "Wikipedia" is not consistently capitalised (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wikipedia&year_start=1985&year_end=2008&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en-2009&smoothing=3). Should this force all mentions of this encyclopedia's name to be "wikipedia" instead of "Wikipedia", so that the MOS:CAPS guideline is not violated? GeoWriter (talk) 14:17, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Thank you, and a darn good point about Wikipedia being upper or lowercased. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:37, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Odd choice to restrict your dates to 1985–2008, when [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wikipedia&year_start=2001&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3 a more appropriate date range] shows Wikipedia is now capitalized 98% of the time. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:18, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support. The [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bakken+Formation%2CBakken+formation&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 Google Books Ngram Viewer] shows Bakken Formation as the most common usage. Volcanoguy 20:03, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
• :@Volcanoguy Please see WP:NCCAPS. A small plurality is not enough. Cremastra _talk 21:41, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Nice try, but Bakken Formation is a proper name. Volcanoguy 21:46, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::The test to see if something is a proper noun or not is arguable to see whether it is usually treated as such. Given sources are divided, it seems to be unclear at the least. Cremastra _talk 21:48, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Per GeoWriter above: {{green|According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy on the naming of stratigraphical units: "Capitalization - The first letters of all words used in the names of formal stratigraphic units are capitalized (except for the trivial names of species and subspecies rank in the names of biostratigraphic units). Informal terms are not capitalized." (source: https://stratigraphy.org/guide/defs).}} Bakken Formation is indeed a formal name per the [https://weblex.canada.ca/html/000000/GSCC00053000705.html Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units]. Volcanoguy 00:02, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support rename/move of Bakken formation to Bakken Formation. GeoWriter (talk) 14:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Amakuru. Cremastra _talk 21:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:Note: WikiProject North Dakota, WikiProject Geography of Canada, WikiProject Montana, WikiProject Energy, and WikiProject Saskatchewan have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 07:54, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per Amakuru and n-gram stats the show capitalization is not necessary. Dicklyon (talk) 21:41, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• :It is the norm for recognized proper names to be capitalized. Volcanoguy 00:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Yes that is the norm, on and off Wikipedia. The fact that "formation" is not consistently capitalized in sources is therefore a good sign that it's not a recognized proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 05:26, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS and ngram evidence provided elsewhere. WP relies on usage in sources to determine what is capped and what is nominally treated as a proper name. This is far from consistently capped in sources and does not meet the threshold by which it would be capped on WP. Formation is a class noun. MOS:GEOCAPS does not make an exception from the general advice in respect to capitalising this as part of a fuller name. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:40, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per inconsistent capitalization in sources, indicating it is not always recognized as a proper noun. External style guides and official documents are sometimes useful but they don't trump analysis of widespread usage and our own policies and Manual of Style. Note that official sources in the US don't always capitalize.[https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Geolex/UnitRefs/BakkenRefs_6641.html][https://eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/bakken-oil-boom-north-dakota-usa]--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 14:28, 21 April 2025 (UTC)