Talk:Hydrogen isotope biogeochemistry

Reference problems
There is a serious reference issue. Normally I'd revert the edits that have the problem, but with so much editing going on, reverting is impossible. You guys didn't cause the problem, Visual Editor did. Don't copy/paste with Visual Editor as it loves to barf all over the page. This time, it threw up on the refs. You will see refs given as. Please replace them with the actual ref.

A minor issue, articles are not an outline. Fix the section headers that have outline letters and numbers. For example  needs to be changed to.

As Caltech students, I realize some of this is over your heads. You have my condolences on not being worthy or smart enough to be at MIT. As the great MIT meteorologist and faculty adviser might have said, you have too many butterflies flapping in your heads. :)

so they are aware.

Bgwhite (talk) 06:02, 26 May 2016 (UTC)


 * - I see you're making some of these fixes, and I don't want to e/c with you. Would you ping me when you've had enough, so I can finish up the cleanup? Thanks. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:30, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, n/m - the template was telling me you edited it 2 seconds ago, and I was (foolishly)trusting that. Just looked at the time stamps instead. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:38, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Another VE problem - the automatic reference names suck. Which means that there are multiple refs named ":1". Ugh! Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:52, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Missing ref
The Atmosphere section includes a reference to Sacese et al., but no full reference is given. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:49, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160503154108/http://fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/tritium.htm to http://fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/tritium.htm

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Multiple issues
Multiple points. Solomonfromfinland (talk) 06:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I edited a surprisingly large amount of excess verbiage (clutter, i call it) from this article; mainly from the wikicode (i believ in concision, and that applies also for wikicode), but also from the text itself. Okay?
 * At one point it said that the decay energy of tritium to helium-3 is about 18.6 MeV. In fact, it’s only ~18 keV, according to the source cited. I corrected this.
 * In the section “Observed variations in isotope abundance”, there is a tag, “This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: δD is used over and over again without being defined; it might also be worth translating into a simpler measure of relative or absolute abundance for less technical readers.” I think δD is the usual δ[isotope] notation (see earlier in the article), with D = deuterium. Still, said term, “δD”, should be clearly defined, with a formula for calculating it, and should in fact be replaced by “δ$2$H”. IUPAC recommends that deuterium should be called by chemical symbol “$2$H” rather than “D” (equivalent for tritium, of course). And i myself, dislike calling it by the symbol “D” (see below). In fact, the expression “δ$2$H” is used earlier in the article; more precisely, “δ$2$H$VSMOW$”.
 * It said, “hydrogen and deuterium” or “hydrogen or deuterium” (the two terms may hav been in the opposite order). In at least two places, i changed this to “hydrogen/deuterium” or “deuterium/hydrogen”; the wording with “and”/“or” makes it look like deuterium is not hydrogen, when it obviously is. Okay? In fact, i hav come to dislike the practise of giving deuterium a separate chemical symbol “D”, for many reasons; one reason is that it makes it look like deuterium is not hydrogen. But if you write “hydrogen/deuterium”, it looks appropriate: the first term refers to a certain element in general, while the second term refers to a particular isotope of said element. More generally, i feel it is reasonable to write “[term]/[a hyponym of said term]”.
 * In fact, writing “$2$H” instead of “deuterium” is not only more concise; it has another benefit: the superscript “2” sticks out, highlighting an important term, and highlighting the fact that here, you ar not only specifying not just an element, but an isotope.
 * It says, “The study of hydrogen stable isotopes began with the discovery of deuterium by chemist Harold Urey of the famous Miller–Urey experiment.” [Citation deleted.] The part, “of the famous Miller–Urey experiment”, should be deleted; it makes it look like said experiment was about the discovery of deuterium, when in fact deuterium was discovered about 1932, while the Miller–Urey experiment wasn’t until 1952.


 * I removed said mention of the Miller–Urey experiment, to keep readers from thinking that said experiment was related to deuterium. Okay? Solomonfromfinland (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Another issue: one source is, a PDF which uses the term "δD", but does not explicitly say that this is the usual δ(isotope) notation, with D = deuterium. Perhaps we should look at other writings by the same author or publisher, to verify that "δD" really means said thing. Then again, given the context, is there any way that in said PDF, "δD" could reasonably mean anything else? Solomonfromfinland (talk) 22:47, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, said PDF givs the H$2$O/Ce ratio as ~200, which is improbably small, given that the amount of cerium is listed as perhaps 10 ppm; so there should be thousands of times more water than cerium. In general, said source is unclear about the terminology it uses, so perhaps this article shouldn't even cite said PDF. (See Verifiability.) Solomonfromfinland (talk) 23:04, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Silver lining
In the section, “Physical chemistry”, subsection “Chemistry of hydrogen exchange”, sub-subsection “Carbon bound hydrogen exchange”; it says, “Recently, scientists have explored a silver lining: hydrogen exchange is a zero order kinetic reaction…” The term “silver lining” here should not be used; given how many times an element or isotope is mentioned (indeed, the very next word after “silver lining”, is “hydrogen”!), it sounds too much like your are referring to literal silver. (See Manual of Style/Words to watch, especially section “Expressions that lack precision”, subsection “Clichés and idioms”.) Solomonfromfinland (talk) 23:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Concision
I hav been editing this article (both wikicode and what the reader sees) for concision. I believ that both the wikicode and what the reader of the article sees, should be concise. For concise wikicode: for example, if one wants to superscript something, one can write " $undefined$ " rather than the less concise " undefined "; equivalent for subscript. And it is better to write " hydrocarbon molecules " than " hydrocarbon molecules " (this is an example i found in this article). Okay? Solomonfromfinland (talk) 00:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)