Talk:Farallon Plate

piece of Farralon Plate stuck under Marin and Sonoma counties
Several years ago I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a new theory that Mount Tamalpais and other landforms that run from east to west may have been caused by a piece of the Farallon Plate that got stuck under the North American Plate, but is simultaneously welded to both the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. As the Pacific Plate moves north, it drags the fragment with it, causing ripples on the surface of the North American Plate. Right now I'm looking for the article, but it's hard to find.Zyxwv99 (talk) 00:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Needs development.
The Farallon plate, because of its extent and longevity, is the basic foundation for much of the geologic development of western North America. It seems to me that it is thus so important that we really need to develop it. Anyone else interested? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Citation style
Bill (and anyone else following along): the original references for this article were "general" (not specifically cited in the text). If the article grows that will need to be fixed, so this seems a good time to ask: what style of citation should be used here? I propose we put the full citations in the References section, and use harv templates in the text/footnotes. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a plan to me. Let's get the inline citations distributed throughout the article when we can. Dawnseeker2000   23:09, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Bill: any objections? If not, I'll go in and start sorting things out. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Done. The standard style here is now templated full citations in References, and Harv templated short cites in the text and notes. Perhaps both or citation acceptable?
 * More work needed: The individual short-cites should have the page specification. The last "reference" is just a press release (not a WP:RS) and should be removed. I left it in in case someone wants to chase down the work the press release is about. The second to the last reference isn't entirely about the Farallon plate, but does refer to a real study.  If someone wants to use it, fine, but the citation needs authors, year of publication, and other details. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Just because research is new doesn't mean it is the last word
This page is peculiarly based on the work of only one or two research teams.

Sigloch & Mihalynuk (2013) is a very interesting and perhaps groundbreaking paper, but I have doubts because it contains major errors. I'm not the expert that some that have studied the western US margin for decades are, but immediately recognized that the authors were making geological assertions that as far as we know, are wrong (and wrong in a way that suggests the authors had not actually made sufficient effort to look at some of the rocks in question, or review the relevant literature). Because they use these as critical constraints for their plate tectonic model, said plate tectonic model is, logically, wrong. Perhaps not unfounded, but certainly in need of modification and definitely not the last word. I'm sure there are other issues, but these two are the ones that struck me:

1. The authors suggest that Siletzia is an arc. It is most certainly not an arc. I'm not sure that anyone has ever suggested it is an arc, because it is so obviously not one.

2. The authors claim that there is not a Mesozoic arc developed on definitive North American craton. There is actually a series of them from Triassic into Cretaceous time, parts of them developed specifically in and on top of the classic Grand Canyon sequence in southeastern California and neighboring portions of California and Arizona. If these things that look very much like arcs are not arcs, then one needs to present some reasonable alternative. There may actually be alternatives, but claiming the rocks to not exist is not one of them.

The new tomographic work and reconstructions derived from it is fascinating, but Wikipedia is not the place to present such models as established truth.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.114.122.23 (talk)


 * Certain conventions need to be observed in order to participate at Wikipedia. First and foremost is to "sign" your comments. This will be done automatically if you add the four tildes (" ~ ") at the end of your comments. Also, to start a new discussion please click on the "New section" tab at the talk of the page.


 * This article certainly is deficient in both quality and scope, and would likely benefit from any attention from someone familiar with (or willing to familiarize themselves with) the topic. Quite aside from what ever criticisms might be made of Sigloch & Mihalynuk (2013), I think the problem here is not so much of that source in itself, but that this article has so little of anything else. Fixing that requires the attention of someone willing to put some serious time and work into the topic. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

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