Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology

Is there a particular reason for geologic time unit articles being at the adjective form rather than the full noun, i.e. Quaternary rather than Quaternary Period? I was a bit surprised to find Tertiary being the article for the (outdated) period rather than the disambiguation page. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:42, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:Probably because the adjective form is most commonly used; see WP:COMMONNAME. Volcanoguy 16:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::In my opinion, this is a form of jargon used by specialists who understand the silent "Period". Whenever they say "Quaternary" they mean "Quaternary Period". Is this jargon so widespread that non-specialist readers would also expect Quaternary to only mean the common name for the time period? A quick look at Quaternary (disambiguation) and Tertiary (disambiguation) suggests "no". I think Quaternary is the common name for Quaternary Period only with in geology. Johnjbarton (talk) 17:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:::I don't think "Period" is even needed in the article title because "Quaternary" is only used in geology to refer to the period. In other words, adding "Period" at the end of "Quaternary" is redundant. Volcanoguy 18:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::Yes, exactly my point. The jargon is so ingrained that it is difficult for geology-oriented editors to recognize that the term has meaning outside of geology and that non-specialist readers will find this shorthand confusing. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::I have looked at all of the entries listed at Quaternary (disambiguation) and Tertiary (disambiguation). Most of the entries use Quaternary or Tertiary as an adjectival part of a compound noun. I doubt anyone would change "Tertiary sector of the economy" to "the Tertiary of the economy" because I think even economic experts reading or hearing this would react "the Tertiary what... of the economy?" The difference with the geological terms is that although they can be used as adjectives e.g. Tertiary sediments or Quaternary volcanism, they are also stand-alone nouns in their own right. The mainstream, general-purpose English dictionaries that I have consulted state that the noun Tertiary (i.e. the Tertiary) has two meanings - a geological meaning and a religious meaning (a member of a third order religious group). Geology and Religion parted company a long time ago and the likelihood of confusing a geological subdivision and a member of a religious group are minimal. The same dictionaries also confirm that Quaternary (i.e. the Quaternary) as a noun has only one commonly used meaning, the geological meaning - therefore I don't see how "the Quaternary" is ambiguous and might not mean the geological thing. In geological articles in Wikipedia "the Tertiary" and "the Quaternary" will most likely be wikilinked to the relevant geological articles anyway, so where is the problem? To me, sometimes using e.g. "the Quaternary" is a legitimate mainstream (not niche) widely-used, widely-understood and widely-accepted alternative to "the Quaternary Period", recorded and defined in numerous general dictionaries of English e.g. Merriam-Webster, Collins, Cambridge (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quaternary). GeoWriter (talk) 19:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::Excellent, you should add this content with refs to the articles! Johnjbarton (talk) 19:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{ec}} I'd like to point out the concision criterion for article titles. Like the case of Rhode Island illustrated there, Quaternary and Quaternary Period are both precise and unambiguous, therefore concision would favor Quaternary. {{U|Johnjbarton}} seems to be making a recognizability argument. I would suggest that the shorter form is more commonly recognized: for example, I think more people would search for Triassic than Triassic Period (since most people don't know that the Triassic is a period: I had to look it up to double-check). — hike395 (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::If "Quaternary" is unambiguous, should we delete Quaternary (disambiguation)? Arguing based on our experiences is biased by our experiences. That is why we have sources. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:49, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::::OK, then. Prove to us that Triassic Period is more recognizable than Triassic, based on hard data and sources. Given that you want to change the title of many articles, the burden of proof is on you. — hike395 (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::::? I made no suggestion about Triassic. There is no Triassic (disambiguation) page. I've never heard of that term outside of geology

::::::::I added the ref suggested by @GeoWriter to the Quaternary (disambiguation) page. However other sources are, well, more ambiguous, eg [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/quaternary].

::::::::I wasn't advocating for Quaternary Period, but Quaternary (geology) would be consistent with many other examples of titles in wikipedia. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::::# MOS:DABNOLINK states {{tq|References should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles.}} Therefore I will remove the citation from Quaternary (disambiguation)

::::::::# The title of this section is {{tq|Article titles for periods, eras, etc.}} and you started by asking {{tq|Is there a particular reason for geologic time unit articles being at the adjective form rather than the full noun}}. You then mentioned both Quaternary and Tertiary. I thought this meant you were proposing changing all geological time unit articles from XYZ to XYZ Period (or whatever the equivalent correct time span is). If that is not what you are proposing, I would suggest restarting the discussion (below) with the article titles you are proposing to change and what you would like to change them to. We can then discuss the merits of the proposal. — hike395 (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::It was Paul_012 who asked {{tq|Is there a particular reason for geologic time unit articles being at the adjective form rather than the full noun}}, not Johnjbarton. Volcanoguy 23:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::Sorry, I did not say those things either. I was only offering an opinion as a non-geology person who also did not immediately connect Quaternary (cool math numbers) and Tertiary (many uses) with geology.

:::::::::::I'm the person who should be sorry -- I misparsed the signatures (above): my mistake. Apologies: I struck out my comment. — hike395 (talk) 05:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::In my opinion the claim in the Quaternary (disambiguation) should be subject to WP:VERIFY like every other page. You can remove the claim. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::::P.S., see Rhode Island (disambiguation) — hike395 (talk) 20:12, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

::::Non-geology specialist, dictionary compilers recognise use of the word 'Quaternary' for the geological period as the prime meaning of the word - 'the Quaternary', like 'the Jurassic', 'the Precambrian' - they are commonly used terms outside of specialists' talk amongst themselves. It's not just 'geology-oriented editors'. Geopersona (talk) 19:47, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks all for the responses. I didn't find previous discussion on the topic, so at least it's been done now. While I'm aware that dictionary definitions do include usage as nouns, such uses always follows the, e.g. the Triassic, so it seemed a bit unnatural to me for the article title to be the name alone. But looking at WP:THE and comparing other cases such as the United States, the Netherlands, etc., it does seem to be appropriate, even if I still think that the fuller terms would be more natural and recognisable. (For example, nearly all of Google's other top results for "Triassic" have Triassic Period in the title.)

There's still the issue of whether the Tertiary Period is actually the primary topic for the search term tertiary, but since it's an isolated issue it would probably be more suited for an RM on that article's talk page. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

:Triassic is dominant in [https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=triassic&btnG= scholar sources]. Volcanoguy 16:32, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I came across TaskForceMajella today: an article about a multi-university research project around the turn of the century. The article was largely written by an editor who appears to have a close relationship with the topic. I have been unable to establish notability via WP:GNG, but given that the project occurred in Italy, I may be missing key documents.

Would editors who are more familiar with fracture/petroleum geology be willing to take a look at it? — hike395 (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

:As a geologist, the article about Task Force Majella reads as an overhyped public relation piece / advertisement for a run of the mill and lackluster research project. In Google Scholar, I found only 22 papers that specially mentioned "TaskForceMajella", which is quite small for what is alledgly the ground breaking research study the article hypes it to be. I found nothing about it in GEOREF, I personally feel it is worthy of being proposed for AFD due to lack of notability via WP:GNG. Paul H. (talk) 18:44, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks for the second opinion, Paul. Now at AfD. All editors are welcome to join the discussion there. — hike395 (talk) 02:51, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I wrote this article, so I would like another editor to rate it when they can. Thanks! I2Overcome (talk) 01:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

:Nice work! I used the Rater tool that analyzes the article against other articles for things like reference density, images and so on. It chose B with 84% reliability, which agrees with my eyeball.

:The article Talk page also needs bits related to Importance which I am not qualified to guess. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

::This is nice: it could even possibly be a Good Article, if you want to try. — hike395 (talk) 02:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

:::It still needs more citations before GA. Volcanoguy 15:05, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Riphean (stage)#Requested move 1 February 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:56, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

:Note to Geology editors --- this move discussion proposes that we disambiguate all ambiguous geologic timespan articles with "(geology)". Feel free to join in the discussion. — hike395 (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

::Very little activity in the discussion: this affects a number of geology articles, please come and contribute to the discussion. — hike395 (talk) 15:56, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

File:Information icon4.svg There is currently a discussion at Template talk:Infobox mineral regarding the formatting of the category field in the infobox for mineral articles. The thread is Category. The discussion is about the topic :Template:Infobox mineral. Thank you. I2Overcome (talk) 02:12, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

I found this article while adding short descriptions. Seems like it got lost to time, thought I'd leave it here in case there's an eager geologist willing to take on such a task. MediaKyle (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

The main category of this article is :Category:Geologic formations which is inconsistent with the article title (geologic instead of geological). Is geologic or geological more appropriate? Volcanoguy 01:17, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

:These are synonyms. The Google ngram viewer [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=geologic%2Cgeological&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 results] amusingly looks like "geologic" was set to conquer "geological" until it suddenly fell out of fashion. Geologic formation redirects to Geological formation. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

::By the looks of the Google ngram viewer results, :Category:Geologic formations and its subcategories should probably be moved to :Category:Geological formations since that seems to be the one most commonly used. Volcanoguy 05:33, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

::{{ping|Hike395}} What is your take on this? The Google ngram viewer gives higher [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=geologic+formation%2Cgeological+formation&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 results] for "geological formation" instead of "geologic formation". Volcanoguy 20:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

:::The two terms may not be synonymous. Apparently the OED says is that "Geological" is the adjectival form of "geology", while "geologic" means something related to the earth (i.e., independent of the study of that object).{{cite encyclopedia|last=Sheriff|first=RE|year=2002|title=Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Geophysics|publisher=Society of Exploration Geophysicists|page=159|entry=geologic, geological|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedic_Dictionary_of_Applied_Geoph/pZONDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA159&printsec=frontcover}} This may be in British English, and the distinction does not appear to be universally used. If you follow that rule, it should be "Geologic formations". I'm unsure. — hike395 (talk) 13:40, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::I guess the American English considers these synonyms:

::::* Merriam Webster says: [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/geological geological] variants: or less commonly geologic.

::::In my opinion the ref cited by hike395 should be favored, as a broad source directly about the distinction and from a source in the field of study. Here is a quote of the full entry:

::::* {{tq|geologic, geological: The Oxford English Dictionary says, "There is now a slight distinction between the use of geologic and geological: the former tends to be used only as an epithet of things forming part of the subject matter of the science: we may say a geologic epoch, but hardly a geologic student, a geologic history." My personal preference is to use whichever word sounds best depending on what it's associated with; thus I would write "seismic and geologic data" and "geophysical or geological data."}}

::::Using OED's concept would be potentially confusing. The term "geologic epoch" would be correct if we discuss a bunch of epochs like "first there was an astronomical epoch, then a geologic epoch and finally a biological one." That seems very rare in Wikipedia. However we would say "The Holocene is the current geological epoch."

::::I know this may not help you decide, but on the other hand it clearly does not matter that much. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:42, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::I think the concept of consistency of spelling only applies within articles. I see no problem with an article "Geological formation" and "Category:Geologic formations". Both are valid spellings of the adjective but a rename to "Category:Geological formations" would be an improvement because it is the more commonly used term.

:::::I cannot think of any example of the word "geologic" being used instead of "geological" in British English. The choice of geologic/geological is not a problem in British English, where the situation is very simple - use geological not geologic. In American English, the adjectives "geologic" and "geological", however, seem somewhat interchangeable. Any nuances of meaning are much more likely to be an issue for American English because, unlike British English, it uses "geologic" very often and "geological" sometimes. The United States Geological Survey exists not the United States Geologic Survey, and the Geological Society of America exists not the Geologic Society of America, but these and every other American publisher of geological literature use "geologic" instead of "geological" in the text of hundreds of thousands of their articles and books.

:::::Quotation from the OED: "{{tq|we may say a geologic epoch, but hardly a geologic student, a geologic history.}}"

:::::I disagree with some of this. Google Scholar search results show "geologic history" accounted for 18% of all academic occurrences of "geologic history" or "geological history" in the past 25 years. [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22geologic+history%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2000&as_yhi=] [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2000&q=%22geological+history%22&btnG=]. One in six authors is not using the wrong word, they are all using the correct word, which is either "geological" or "geologic", depending on personal preference. GeoWriter (talk) 18:41, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::In Google Scholar I got about 63,500 results for "geological formation" versus about 19,400 results for "geologic formation". Volcanoguy 19:33, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I think the results in Google Scholar are compelling enough to change the category tree to "Geological formation", but it would be a big pain to change. We could also leave it inconsistent. — hike395 (talk) 04:19, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::{{green|I think the concept of consistency of spelling only applies within articles.}} If that is the case then why are the article titles of other stratigraphic units like bed (geology) and group (stratigraphy) not consistent with geological formation? It appears geological formation was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Geological_formation&diff=prev&oldid=223882679 moved] from formation (stratigraphy) in 2008 because it's a "better definition", but there doesn't seem to be an explanation for why "geological formation" is the better definition. I'm not opposed to moving the article back to formation (stratigraphy) if that's a better title. Perhaps it's more specific because there's probably not a universal definition for what a formation is in geology. Volcanoguy 22:31, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::"{{green|I think the concept of consistency of spelling only applies within articles.}}" Volcanoguy, I mean that Wikipedia style rules exist for the spelling of any given word in a particular article: MOS:ENGVAR and MOS:ARTCON. e.g. in the Pangaea article, Pangaea should be Pangaea not Pangea and not both, because of the non-American English taking precedence in that article because non-American English is the English variety used early in the article's history. In other articles, the supercontinent can be referred to as Pangaea or Pangea (but not both spellings in a single article). Your point is about spelling consistency across multiple articles. My comment was intended to make the point that I do not know of any Wikipedia style rule that requires consistency across multiple articles, which is why inconsistencies such as those you have listed do occur.

:::::::Perhaps we are drifting a bit too far from the original question of article/category title consistency but as you mentioned a possible move/rename of the article, I will mention here that I dislike the article title "Geological formation" (or "Geologic formation") and I would welcome a rename. This article's edit history shows that its title started as "Geologic formation" then became "Geological formation" then "Formation (stratigraphy)" then "Geological formation". In geology, the entity is a "formation" not "geological formation" nor "geologic formation". Geological or geologic are merely optional adjectives when describing rock formations. Google ngram viewer suggests that "rock formation" is used more nowadays than "geological formation" or "geologic formation". A possible solution to the geological/geologic/rock adjective problem that I very much prefer is to change the article title to Formation (geology) (which is currently a redirect to Geological formation). It could have redirects from "Geological formation", "Geologic formation" and "Formation (stratigraphy)". I prefer a rename to "Formation (geology)" not "Formation (stratigraphy)" because the formation article needs cover the stratigraphical concept of a formation and also the non-scientific popular usage of formation to mean a rocky landform, outcrop or exposure, such as a granitic tor or a hoodoo etc., as well as any other non-stratigraphical meanings that may emerge. This would make it similar to Rock (geology) where the entity is a "rock" not a "Geological rock" nor a "Geologic rock" and the article title is not Geological rock or Geologic rock. I can repeat/expand my reasoning elsewhere if a formal move/rename of the "Geological formation" article were to be requested in future. GeoWriter (talk) 15:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to include both stratigraphical and non-stratigraphical meanings in one article since they refer to two different things. Volcanoguy 20:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::For example, crater lake was split into volcanic crater lake and impact crater lake. Volcanoguy 00:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:A similar question is whether either "geologic map" or "geological map" the prefered usage? Paul H. (talk) 15:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

::"Geological map" seems to be the preferred usage. Volcanoguy 19:57, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

{{reflist talk}}

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Late Devonian extinction#Requested move 5 April 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. PrimalMustelid (talk) 04:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Amazonian craton#Requested move 27 March 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 12:24, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

The RM is to uppercase 'Formation', and editors of this WikiProject may have an interest in either reviewing the RM or participating in it. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

This article is at GAN if anyone is interested in reviewing it. Volcanoguy 15:13, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

The Geography page has a section titled "related fields," which includes both Geology and Planetary science. We could use a bit of elaboration/citations on both, and citations for the planetary science page. If anyone wants to take a crack at them, it would be appreciated! GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:29, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

The article Variscan chain was recently translated from French. However, to me it seems to essentially be a duplicate of Variscan orogeny, and in my opinion the two article should probably be merged. I wanted to get an outside opinion before making a formal merge request though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:36, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:A merge seems the obvious solution. The new article even uses "Variscan orogeny" several times, rather than "Variscan chain". Mikenorton (talk) 14:13, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:I have now made a formal merge proposal [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Variscan_orogeny#c-Hemiauchenia-20250423142200-Proposal_to_merge_Variscan_chain_into_this_article] Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:23, 23 April 2025 (UTC)