Talk:Geology of the United States/Archive 1

Province map?
The Geologic provinces section cries out for a map illustrating the boundaries of the provinces. --JohnRDaily 02:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed move to Geology of North America
Does anyone have any feelings about moving to Geology of North America instead? -Ravedave (talk) 21:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good idea. --Amaltheus (talk) 03:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. Any reason not to do a simple move? Note there is not a Geology of Mexico or Geology of Canada article.

Physiographic provinces of the U.S.
I guess that there are lots of ways to slice & dice things. It's a shame that neither of these maps seems to match the text in the section on the physiographic regions of the United States. Is there a reason that the text could not be manipulated to somewhat reflect these? I created them with GIS data from the USGS. The full metadata for the data set is linked to from the images' description pages, and that information includes the full pedigree of the data presented in these maps. If that just doesn't match current thinking, I'd be happy to create a new one given the data, preferably as a shapefile, though a bitmip image begging to be recreated as an vector image might work in a pinch.

BTW, I'd be more than happy to redo this if I could find a dataset that covered the whole of North America. The most prolific source of public domain geographic & geologic data and information for the continent is the USGS, and they understandably specialize in the 50 States. Canadian & Mexican data are somewhat harder to come by, while those governments retain copyright on most of what can be found. --Kbh3rd talk 01:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

By political division
It's pretty rare that political divisions lie along lines that would make sense from a geological perspective (aside, I suppose, from boundaries that are oceans.) I don't think we should be pursuing more articles about geology by state; regions (such as "Pacific Northwest", "Rocky Mountains", etc.) make more sense. I've reverted some recent template additions to a number of related articles. -Pete (talk) 16:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * If we shouldn't be pursuing geology articles by political division, we should determine another way of dividing up the continent's geology. A template at the bottom of North American geology pages would be helpful for navigation and organization; we just need to create one that will encompass the appropriate articles. Neelix (talk) 16:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any problem with a "Geology of North America" template that links to the existing articles. Might take a little creativity to organize it well, but it should be possible. I just don't see any reason to encourage the creation of, say, a "Geology of Oregon" article when a perfectly serviceable "Geology of the Pacific Northwest" article exists. I think that's probably true of most states; the geology of the region makes more sense for an article. -Pete (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you think of the idea of using the "Geology of North America" article that I added previously, but creating redirects to the larger more applicable areas from the state names? For example, "Geology of Oregon" would redirect to "Geology of the Pacific Northwest", as would the other links to states in that area.  Where the state is the proper area to use geologically, the page would be an article rather than a redirect.  Where it is too specific, it could redirect to an article that pertains to a larger area. Neelix (talk) 20:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I would prefer to build something with very few redirects, so that the reader can readily see what articles do and don't exist. I just posted a note at WikiProject Geology, to see if anyone there wants to weigh in. Glad you're motivated to work on a navbox, and I'm guessing they will be, too! -Pete (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is most of this article about American geology? Half of North America's geology lies in Canada, as well as some of the oldest (i.e. Canadian Shield). Black Tusk 02:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Because they moved it here from the America-specific page. In answer to I just don't see any reason to encourage the creation of, say, a "Geology of Oregon" article when a perfectly serviceable "Geology of the Pacific Northwest" article exists, it's because people want information about the geology of Oregon and don't want to (and will be insulted and annoyed about having to) wade through information about northern California, Washington, Idaho, and Vancouver Island, especially if more active writers in those other areas produces (as it inevitably will) lopsided articles such as this one, full of maps and links inappropriate to the page heading. -LlywelynII (talk) 18:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Then more work is in need for this article. It does not seem to get much attention by anyone.  Volcano guy  08:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Huge collection of links
I moved those here because they seem overspecific for this article. Some probably can be reworked into the a text section. Others might be better suited in other articles. --Tobias1984 (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Seismic faults

 * Basin and Range Province
 * Clarendon-Linden fault system
 * Humboldt fault
 * Moab Fault
 * New Madrid Seismic Zone
 * Seattle Fault
 * Wasatch Fault

Faults in California

 * Calaveras Fault
 * Clayton-Marsh Creek-Greenville Fault
 * Elsinore Fault Zone
 * Garlock Fault
 * Hayward Fault Zone
 * Healdsburg Fault
 * Mendocino Fracture Zone
 * Monta Vista Fault
 * Newport-Inglewood Fault
 * Raymond Fault
 * San Andreas Fault
 * San Gabriel Fault
 * San Jacinto Fault Zone
 * Sierra Nevada Fault
 * Silver Creek Fault
 * Tesla Fault
 * White Wolf Fault
 * Whittier Fault

Mines

 * Category: Coal mines in the United States
 * Category:Copper mines in the United States
 * Category:Diamond mines in the United States
 * Category: Gold mines in the United States
 * Category:Iron mines in the United States


 * Category:Mercury mines in the United States
 * Category:Quarries in the United States
 * Category:Silver mines in the United States
 * Category:Sulfur mines in the United States
 * Category:Zinc mines in the United States

Geology of the Rocky Mountains

 * Burgess Shale
 * Cloverly Formation
 * Columbia Icefield
 * Dakota Hogback
 * Dakota Sandstone
 * Denver Basin
 * Geology of the Grand Teton area
 * Gold mining in Colorado
 * Grand Mesa


 * Great Divide Basin
 * Green River Formation
 * La Garita Caldera
 * Lance Formation
 * Laramide orogeny
 * Morrison Formation
 * Pikes Peak granite
 * Powder River Basin
 * Raton Basin


 * Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists
 * Rocky Mountain Trench
 * Silver mining in Colorado
 * Sundance Sea
 * Triple Divide Peak
 * Uranium mining in Colorado
 * Uranium mining in Wyoming
 * Western Interior Seaway

Article needs massive overhaul
Yes, the Hispanophones are dead wrong that "America" doesn't mean the USA, but this article is also dead wrong that "North America" does. I see above that this actually is a "Geology of the United States" article that was nonsensically renamed. It doesn't need to go back, but it does need to have all the inappropriate US-specific maps and state-level links removed. Those need to go to a (I suppose, new?) "Geology of the United States" article.

The entire approach is wrong-headed. Yes, geological features are noncontiguous with most political boundaries. But people care more about their countries or regions (in all their diversity or odd boundaries) than whatever particular feature they happen to be on top of at the moment. Without summary pages, they wouldn't even know where to begin looking. The alternative is to cram all country-specific geological information into sections of the specific state and national pages, but those sections should just be overviews and not full treatments. And in any case, US-specific maps don't belong on this one. -LlywelynII (talk) 18:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, this article needs serious improvement, but rather than an overhaul, it need addition. There are no geology articles for Canada, Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean. If these are works in progress, I haven't found them anywhere. I suggest that until there exist sections for the rest of the continent, the article's title should be reverted to "Geology of the United States".Jakaloke (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A sensible approach would seem to me to write a comprehensive Geology of N America article, incorporating current content from Geol of Canada and Mexico as appropriate, then retrospectively split this content (and expand it?) to make the sub articles. But yes, strongly agree a rewrite from 1st principles is probably justified. (I'm afraid I'm moving state and job right now, but might be able to help some in the medium term.) DanHobley (talk) 04:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)