Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology

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Requested move at Talk:Riphean (stage)#Requested move 1 February 2025

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)

Discussion at Template talk:Infobox mineral

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)

Geology of Europe

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)

Geological formation

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 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)

@Hike395: What is your take on this? The Google ngram viewer gives higher 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). 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: 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:

• 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: "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. [1] [2]. 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)

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 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)

"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)

References

Requested move at Talk:Late Devonian extinction#Requested move 5 April 2025

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)

Requested move at Talk:Amazonian craton#Requested move 27 March 2025

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)

Requested move relisting at Talk:Bakken formation#Requested move 1 April 2025

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)

Ice Peak Formation

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

Help on Geography page

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)

Variscan chain

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 [3] Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:23, 23 April 2025 (UTC)