Talk:Erosion/Archive 1

Untitled
Just where does erosion end and causes for erosion begin? Overgrazing and deforestation to name a few examples...are those forms of erosion or do they cause water erosion? In any case, mention of them should be made methinks. Is there perhaps a geologist out there to take pity on this poor article? :-)
 * Overgrazing and deforestation remove vegetation, making the soil more easily eroded. You can feel free to try to make this clearer in the article yourself, as we can't all be geologists. Lotusduck 22:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Beach erosion
This article doesn't say anything about beach erosion. Should that be added, or should it be a separate article? Blank Verse  &empty;  15:06, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * All erosion should come under one heading. Beach erosion can be caused by man or in the case of Hawkes Bay NZ by the ravages of nature in the form of a caterpillar that is eating the coastal willow plants, exposing the coastline to sea erosion forces. (comment by User:Crowsgorve)

Related articles may deserve links
I noticed that there are articles on ice wedge and frost heaving, which may be relevant to this article. I don't really know anything about erosion, so I'm reluctant to add them. If someone could look at these, I'd appreciate it. (Those two articles might also want links to erosion, perhaps in the first few [ [sentences).] ] Thanks! -- Creidieki 04:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Acid rain
I removed the acid rain erosion section, as acid rain is no more directly erosive than ordinary rain. It does enhance chemical weathering which in turn leads to more rapid erosion. Vsmith 17:16, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

merger
yes by all means merge relevant washout section into erosionwith residual navigation pointer on the washout page.Anlace 04:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC) hptyhltp[t'j —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.49.238 (talk) 03:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Overuse of national parks / tourism as a cause?
Can we say something about tourism / hiking / mountain biking / other human leisure activities being a cause of soil erosion? This seems a minor-but-significant omission from an otherwise excellent article. Thanks Thruston 22:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * your point is valid. ive added two paragraphs under causes of erosion to address animal and human causes. these are actually effects due to overpopulation.  what is more significant from an editing standpoint is that im just realizing we could use a whole sub article on "causes of erosion": its that big a topic ! regards Anlace 01:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Formatting
Changed the layout of this one a little because the big gap was making it difficult to read, now it is all spaced out. Hurrah!--Dexter 12 07:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Umm ... what big gap, seems all those spaces you added created a big gap. It looks fine to me on all resolutions as it was. Therefor removed excess lines. Vsmith 12:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

what are other factors of erosion??????? i need help? :(

Vandalism
Some vandal had destroyed the page with "Search item not found" so I reconstructed.--Fellow of wiki 10:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm doing it all!
I will address all of your concerns, I'm doing an independent study project on water pollution/quality/erosion, and my exam is to update those pages. User:Jonwilliamsl(User_talk:Jonwilliamsl|talk]]|contribs) 00:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Really weird Commons picture, captioned in German
This image is in commons (and is featured in the German wikipedia) but I can't read German and don't understand the caption. It looks like it might be an interesting addition to this article. Spikebrennan 22:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Too Preachy
This page reads like a preachy environmental tract rather than useful information on erosion. By way of comparison, see http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002640 Don't you think chemical erosion should be mentioned considering that 70% of the amount carried by rivers is in solution? Don't you think that actual numbers should be used on average erosion amounts, such as the 4cm/k.y. for granite and 16-20cm/k.y. for non-basalt types? If increased erosion occurs due to manmade causes, I'd sure like to know how much it increases by along with some useful links.190.41.106.156 (talk) 17:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

National Geographic Cover Story
Our Good Earth: The future rests on the soil beneath our feet is a great article. Some information to be mined, although it's mainly general. II | (t - c) 08:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Shoreline Erosion
Is shoreline erosion technically not a type of water erosion? I think these two should be merged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomdiepstrap (talk • contribs) 04:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Sub-types
No specific mention of terms like pothole erosion or plunge pool erosion. Would be useful if commonly-used terms like these could be defined. --Simon the Likable (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2009 (UTC) it can be safe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.152.166.94 (talk) 11:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Article protected
I made a request that this article be semi-protected from vandalism by unregistered users. Protection expires March 24. If vandalism continues to be a problem, submit the article again to Requests for page protection. ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 07:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Wind Erosion
The opening sentence for the section Wind states: "In arid climates, the main source of erosion is wind."

I'm not a geologist, but i am pretty sure this is incorrect. According to "Earth, an introduction to physical geology" (Tarbuck & Lutgens, 1999, 6th ed.) is Wind-erosion simply more visible than in less arid areas. ...running water, although infrequent, nevertheless does most of the erosional work in deserts (p333). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skin (talk • contribs) 08:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 65.183.2.18, 18 July 2011
Change "Erosion is the process of weathering and transport of solids" to "Erosion is the removal of solids or dissolving of rock material by water, ice, wind and waves" Ref About Geography or any dictionary of Geography. Erosion is not weathering or transport it is the wearing away of the material.

65.183.2.18 (talk) 01:44, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: As I read things Weathering is  the breaking down of rocks, soils and minerals, which would be the same as dissolving and removal = transport, at least to me so the sentence is correct as it currently is written.  You can attempt to establish a consensus in order to have it changed though. Jnorton7558 (talk) 06:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I made a quick change, as the first sentence was ungrammatical anyway. I hope it addresses your concern. I try to make clear that erosion = subtraction of material, and then go into what happens to it. Awickert (talk) 07:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Too biased to geology
Surely erosion is much more than just a geological phenomenom. It is the breakdown of a surface by mechanical means and can be applied to any solid material, not just rock. This article, except for a small section near the bottom, reads that only rock (i.e. the Earth) can be subject to erosion which is incorrect. kimdino (talk) 00:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to expand that section - or perhaps to create a separate article covering erosion in materials science as this one is quite obviously focused on geological erosion. There are two dablinks at the top ... room for another or make a disambig page if needed. The "figurative use" section and is quite out of place (and unsourced) and needs help or removal. Vsmith (talk) 02:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Bluff erosion in Pacifica 2.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Bluff erosion in Pacifica 2.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on July 27, 2011. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2011-07-27. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks!  howcheng  {chat} 23:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Hydrologically Invisible
I have googled this phrase, seen it used, and it still makes no sense to me. Wouldn't a road in general be designed to get water off it as quickly as possible? Isn't the whole problem with roads that they have 100% surface runoff? Lotusduck 03:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Being hydrologically invisible means to attempt to "avoid changing or concentrating the natural flow of water". A badly designed road (one that is not hydrologically invisible) might encourage the water to travel along the road for a great distance, and then, when the road turns, it fails to handle the huge amount of water that needs to be displaced.  As a result, you get a giant erosion valley, because that single point of concentration is failing to handle all of the runoff that was collected over a large stretch of road.
 * Another example of bad design is a dirt bike trail that runs diagonally down the entire length of a hill. Not only is the natural sheet flow interrupted by the trail, but then there is no natural escape for the water, and it is then concentrated and forced to follow along the channel of the trail until it blows out at some point.  See also Calif. State Parks - Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation - Renz Property, in the section entitled 'Water Runoff'.  Grolltech (talk) 01:26, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Effects section lacks basic data, cites biased newspaper articles
The effects section does not include basic quantitative information on erosion, and bases many statements on newspaper articles where there is obvious bias in the article and suspect statistics. I understand that it is easy to do a google search and find newspaper articles that discuss this subject, but there is no assurance that the articles have reliable information. There is also the misuse of the concept of overpopulation. Someone who knows the topic better than I do should rewrite this so that it has reliable citations with useful data. Avram Primack (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I've added a request for help here, although you should also consider that you yourself might be the best placed person to improve the article, while discussing here anything that might be considered controversial by those who authored the material in the article. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:15, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Olympic National Park image/caption
I have done what I can to shorten the image captions to their essentials per the Manual of Style...but I'm not quite certain what this image is attempting to convey. Is it important to know that it is a burned out gully, or that erosion is more rapid here due to heavy rains, or both? I will leave it up to others to shorten this caption. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with your removal of content from the captions. I do understand that the captions are a few lines longer than the 3 recommended by the Manual of Style. But that is because they are discussing complex geological processes that do not lend themselves over to 10 word descriptions. This is a case where WP:IAR applies to the MOS guideline on succinct captions. (WP:CAPTION is only a guideline, and in this case I don't see any good reason to believe that these captions are too long, considering the subject matter). Another thing that WP:CAPTION suggests is that we provide context and relate it to the article. Your edits removed from the captions almost everything other than brief descriptions of the contents of the image -- that is, they removed all of the information on how the contents of the image relate to the topic. I don't see the benefit of this to our readers -- the captions are useless (as far as our goal of educating readers on erosion) if they don't say anything about erosion. And they won't be as engaging, if they just say dull things like "A terraced field in Madagascar". I am going to revert the removal of the discussion of how the images relate to erosion processes. (I do welcome your suggestions on how to make the captions more informative though! I just don't agree with the idea that they should have been deleted, instead of improved, or that they are too long.)
 * Regarding why I chose this particular image of the Olympic clearcut to illustrate the effects of deforestation on erosion rates: (a) I feel like it is a gripping image (WP:CAPTION also suggests that images should draw readers into the article) (b) This clearcut is on a particularly steep slope, in a very rainy area, which makes it almost certain that severe erosion will occur. (c) It provides visual evidence to readers for the assertion that clearcuts increase erosion, in addition to written evidence (both are crucial, in my opinion). -- Mesoderm (talk) 07:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, I went ahead and shortened the captions, and focused them more on the information related to erosion. Do you think they are better now? What would you change? -- Mesoderm (talk) 09:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * They look fine now. The way I understand it (someone during a FAC got on my case about captions a year or two back), you let the article discuss the details, with the pictures as examples of what is being discussed.  If you want to include a long image description in the commons upload page for the image, that's apparently fine.  Trust me, I feel your pain here.  But, I would like to see the article have a better chance of being passed quickly within GAN/FAC when it is eventually submitted.  Thegreatdr (talk) 21:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining. That makes sense to me, and I think the more concise captions are better anyway. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions. Cheers. -- Mesoderm (talk) 21:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Dead Sea erosion image
Hello. This article looks great with all the new edits and additions. I've added an image from the Dead Sea coast showing some extraordinary erosion taking place these days as the sea level drops by a meter a year. Flash flooding produces these deep channels in the exposed soft lakebed sediment very quickly. This image adds significantly to the article, but I'm not sure I put it in the right place. The recent editors here may have a better idea. Best Wishes, Wilson44691 (talk) 19:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 September 2012
A complex overall situation with respect to defining nutrient losses from soils, could arise as a result of the size selective nature of soil erosion events. Loss of phosphorus, for instance, in the finer eroded fraction is greater relative to the whole soil. Extrapolating this evidence to predict subsequent behaviour within receiving aquatic systems, the reason is that this more easily transported material may support a lower solution P concentration compared to coarser sized fractions.

Soilcare (talk) 14:37, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. &mdash; KuyaBriBri Talk 19:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 October 2012
EROSION PAGE

Agricultural practices
Unsustainable agricultural practices are the single greatest contributor to the global increase in erosion rates. The tillage of agricultural lands, which breaks up soil into finer particles, is one of the primary factors. The problem has been exacerbated in modern times, due to mechanized agricultural equipment that allows for deep plowing, which severely increases the amount of soil that is available for transport by water erosion. Others include mono-cropping, farming on steep slopes, pesticide and chemical fertilizer usage (which kill organisms that bind soil together), row-cropping, and the use of surface irrigation. Tillage also increases wind erosion rates, by dehydrating the soil and breaking it up into smaller particles that can be picked up by the wind. Exacerbating this is the fact that most of the trees are generally removed from agricultural fields, allowing winds to have long, open runs to travel over at higher speeds. Heavy grazing reduces vegetative cover and causes severe soil compaction, both of which increase erosion rates.

PLEASE CHANGE THE PREVIOUS TO THIS SECTION

Edit request on 13 October 2012
120.63.3.152 (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No request was made. Dawnseeker2000   02:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

The Herald?
I was just popping in to fix a redirect, when I saw that this article is using a newspaper's interpretation of what the United Nations had supposedly stated on land degradation (section 4.1). That doesn't strike me as a very reliable source - if the UN had stated something, chances are you can find the document itself, and then cite from the horses mouth directly. Just thought I'd bring some attention to the issue. --$\color{Blue}\mathcal{M}$$\color{Blue}\vec{( e\ ,}$$\color{Blue}t )$ = ? 17:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)


 * For a relatively simple claim like this one, it probably doesn't much matter. One could even argue that the UN would be a primary source for this, and that the Herald, a broadsheet established in 1783, is a very reliable secondary source and thus would have been expected to do their own fact-checking on this. (That'd be a weak argument, though, as their only statement is that the UN made the claim, so not much fact-checking would have been necessary.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion of weathering and mass movement processes
I have concerns about the following sections: I suggest removing them. Kayau (talk · contribs) 14:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Exfoliation: That's a weathering process. There is no external agent involved.
 * Freezing & thawing: That's a weathering process. I've removed the second paragraph as it clearly references only the weathering process. The remaining one states that freezing and thawing is related to 'gravitational movement'. However,
 * Gravitational erosion: Mass movement is independent of erosion. That was stated clearly in source 21.

Frost weathering shows that freeze-thaw should be updated as it is wronga s in articel now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.80.98 (talk) 08:16, 21 March 2013 (UTC) i agree a 100 % but i think you should or said how to remember weathering and eroshion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2369 lol (talk • contribs) 01:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Split proposal, Erosion/Soil Erosion
Just discovered someone has spotted this article looks like it should be split. Here's a discussion space for it.

I agree it needs it, I think. The bottom half (2/3?) of the article is very specifically about soil erosion, and that's actually misleading - a lot of stuff said here isn't necessarily true of all erosion. Good catch, Lappspira. Looks like the putative soil erosion article will already be fairly meaty with an appropriate lede and intro. However, this article will become embarrassingly short for what looks to me like a high priority article in both geology and geography. We'll need to sort this out. DanHobley (talk) 05:47, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you DanHobley. I forgot to write here. Yes, the article will be short after soil erosion is splitted of. I will try to fill that with some geomorphology material. –Lappspira (talk) 06:14, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , it seems that you have already split it. Normally you're supposed to give people a week to comment before carrying out the action. Otherwise, what is the point of starting the discussion? But I don't think you need to undo it unless someone objects to the split. RockMagnetist(talk) 20:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * On second thought, I am going to undo the deletions. This article is a level-3 vital article, a top- or high-important topic for three projects and is viewed about 1.4 million times a year, and now it looks like a tree that has been badly topped. If a split is done, it should be done with more care; someone should prepare a decent summary for the material before it is removed. After all, soil erosion is part of this subject. The split should also be properly documented. See How to properly split an article. RockMagnetist(talk) 20:50, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've undone the improper cut and paste of content to soil erosion, which was done with no attribution, and returned that to a redirect here. Vsmith (talk) 22:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean by "improper cut and paste of content to soil erosion, which was done with no attribution". I made several edits (as myself) to the soil erosion page earlier today, and spent a couple of hours doing these. Does this apparent change of mind regarding the splitting of erosion and soil erosion mean that I have been wasting my time editing the soil erosion page? I hope not... Dave F-M (talk) 22:43, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * There hasn't been a change of mind so much as a recognition that it wasn't done properly. The improper cut and paste was the one that created Soil erosion; the split has to be done correctly so the history of content before the split is preserved (see How to properly split an article). It wasn't targeted at your edits - you could use this diff as a basis for editing the same material in Erosion. Sorry for the inconvenience. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:51, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * However, you should leave out the top paragraph because it was based on a copyright violation that was added before the split (see my note at Talk:Soil erosion). RockMagnetist(talk) 23:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * One last note on procedure: an appropriate edit summary for a split is needed to conform with Wikipedia's licensing requirements (see Procedure), so it's not optional. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks User:RockMagnetist for explaing, I've been busy off-wiki for a bit. To Dave F-M, your changes/additions are still available in the history of Soil erosion and can either be added here or to that article should the split be properly done. Vsmith (talk) 23:30, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, have added my Soil erosion edits to Erosion as suggested above. Thanks for the guidance! In my opinion, the Erosion page should be split: at present it attempts to cover so many topics that it is not easy for contributors like me, who have some knowledge of one topic (soil erosion my case) to make broad-brush statements that are also true of all the other kinds of erosion discussed on this page (e.g. coastal erosion, glacial erosion, etc.) Just a thought... Dave F-M (talk) 11:28, 6 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Another solution would be to create a section on soil erosion in this article. I'm no expert on this subject, but surely there are many common issues between soil erosion and more general erosion, and it would help to juxtapose them so the commonalities and differences are made clear. The page size is 49 kB, so there is no urgency in splitting it based on the amount of material (see WP:SIZERULE). Also, creating a section would clarify what content would be moved if the article were split and would make it easier to prepare a summary to leave behind. RockMagnetist(talk) 15:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Soil erosion content is enough for an own article. Keeping its here would give some sort of special weight to that kind of erosion. To obtain a "rounded" and balanced erosion article the best option is to split soil erosion off. Lappspira (talk) 18:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:45, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Bad haircut
You have done part of the split procedure properly - providing appropriate edit summaries - but not the other part. You should summarize Soil erosion in this article. I don't see any sign that you have prepared any such summaries. Instead, you have left a lot of Expand section tags for someone else to clean up. That is not an appropriate way to handle any article, especially one that is a level-3 vital article and is viewed about 1.4 million times a year. I am going to restore the content and add an appropriate tag. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:04, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I have moved all the split material into Earth systems. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:17, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, soil erosion should be summarized. Nobody has said the contrary. You just need to be patient. Lappspira (talk) 07:06, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Opening sentence
The opening sentence of the lede is not quite right, I don't think. We currently have "In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) which remove soil and rock from one location on the Earth's crust, then transport it to another location where it is deposited." (emphasis mine). A little poking around at formal definitions confirms the problem: there is ambiguity over whether erosion is just the breakdown of material (AKA weathering) or whether it is breakdown + transport (AKA denudation/degradation) – see, e.g., this good brittanica.com summary – but what it definitely is not is breakdown + transport + deposition, which is what our lede implies.

If anyone has any flashes of inspiration on how to distil this down into a pithy single sentence better than what I've achieved, go for it. DanHobley (talk) 22:53, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Chemical erosion
I've just discovered WP's coverage of chemical erosion is woeful. The two sentence subsection on this page appears to be it, project-wide. I modified the lede to indicate physical processes is only half of erosion, but we need to beef out our description of the other half, a lot. I don't have the expertise to do this quickly myself, or the time to do the research without the existing expertise... DanHobley (talk) 23:32, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

No such word: seaload
I understand what was meant by it but there is no such word. Could you please rephrase? 73.71.174.75 (talk) 04:32, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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