Talk:Kirtlandian

Notability
I think it was a mistake to pass this article for GA. All the citations are of primary sources, and most of those include Sullivan as an author. The policy on original research states that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." The big notability issue here is whether this is really a recognized biochronological unit. I have found a couple of citations that cast doubt on it: "... and on the basis of mammals there is no reason for establishing a Kirtlandian land vertebrate age."

- Eaton and CIfelli, At the Top of the Grand Staircase: The Late Cretaceous of Southern Utah page 324

"... the recently named Kirtlandian Land Vertebrate Age (LVA) ... However, the age of the Aguja is not well enough constrained to test Sullivan and Lucas's idea ..."

- Sankey, New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium, page 521

Hence my notability tag. Secondary sources need to be found that establish the Kirtlandian as a recognized land vertebrate age, and not just an idea of Sullivan's. RockMagnetist(talk) 00:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

For comparison, see the references I have added to the well-established Cretaceous land-mammal "ages" (Lancian, Edmontonian, and Judithian). These are extensively discussed in secondary sources from as recently as 2012. I have not been able to find anything like that for the Kirtlandian. RockMagnetist(talk) 01:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well yes, I agree that this article has a lack of notability apart from Sullivan's papers. When I expanded this and nominated it for GA, I think that I believed I could to somewhere on it, simply because I found out about it through the expansion of Titanoceratops. However, now I doubt its notability and Ga standard. IJReid  discuss 02:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Now that I remember, it is also Williamson, Longrich and Sankey who have made recent publications. And Russell, a fairly well-known palaeontologist in North America, first named it. I would cite Russell, but I have not found a copy of his publication to go off of. IJReid  discuss 02:12, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I admire your objectivity. There is no rush deciding on notability if you want to search for some sources. If no good ones are found, I think the best approach is to redirect this to Biochronology (which I am thinking of expanding) with a line or two about a proposed LMA. And maybe some of the material could go in the other articles on land-vertebrate ages. RockMagnetist(talk) 02:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Scientific criticism of the validity of the Kirtlandian doesn't undermine its notability as subject of an article any more than it would for geocentrism or Lamarckism. I'm not convinced that there's any cause for de-listing it. Abyssal (talk) 02:29, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * But the issue for notability is whether it is discussed by any secondary sources. RockMagnetist(talk) 02:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For science subjects "primary source" has a different meaning to biographies, where a primary source is written by the subject about themselves. So the OR policy can be a bit confusing here.  But if the inventor of the concept writes on it I suppose the writing can be considered a primary source, particularly if no one else writes on it.  But if several other people do so, even if it is not a review or academic secondary source, then I think that notability is proven. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Abyssal. Whether the term "Kirtlandian" is eventually adopted is not material to this discussion. You mention two secondary sources in your opening statement above so I am not sure where you are coming from. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:34, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * But I have also quoted those sources in full on the subject. They don't even bother to define it. That's not significant coverage. RockMagnetist(talk) 15:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Continuing up here. I have searched up the term now in Google Scholar, and I believe that the article is notable on the basis of it being used in a large number of publications by a variety of authors. The reason this discussion was first brought up is not so much based on it being non-notable, but it not citing multiple recent publications by different authors (eg. "Saurornitholestes" robust is a troodontid). I will add a list of non-inline references at the end, and maybe also cite them in the text. IJReid  discuss 17:12, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding the references. However, they still don't meet the notability criteria. All are primary and one is an abstract. The first has Sullivan as a co-author, so is not independent; the second says "We document Late Cretaceous (Kirtlandian, Edmontonian) ..." and the third says (on p. 12) "... and all of the named ankylosaurid taxa are characteristic of the Kirtlandian land-vertebrate age (Sullivan and Lucas, 2003, 2006)." That's the coverage, in toto. Even if we accept that an accumulation of primary sources can stand in for a secondary source (and that is questionable), they still need to have more than a bare mention. Has anyone besides Sullivan even defined the Kirtlandian? RockMagnetist(talk) 17:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, you are missing the point that Sullivan is not even the definer of the Kirtlandian. Also, Burns 2008 actually has a diagram illustrating the biostratigraphy in San Juan Basin, including the age and formations of the Kirtlandian. IJReid  discuss 00:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I did miss that point; the lead credits Sullivan and Lucas. I may have to take your word about the content of Burns 2008 because I can't access its content, but it sounds very promising. RockMagnetist(talk) 03:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Since this is apparently still under question here is the doi of Burns 2008 (if you so desire it can be accessed through Sci-Hub, but thats blacklisted by the wiki for linking). 10.1671/0272-4634-28.4.1102 IJReid  discuss 02:11, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Definer of Kirtlandian
In the notability discussion, you said that Sullivan is not the definer of the Kirtlandian, and for some reason I accepted that at the time. However, I have just noticed that Sullivan and Lucas (2006) say "Sullivan and Lucas (2003a) recently named the youngest of these three gaps the Kirtlandian land-vertebrate 'age' (LVA)." RockMagnetist(talk) 16:32, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Notability revisited
Here is a summary of what I see in this article: All of the sources that support the idea of a Kirtlandian age have Sullivan, Lucas or Burns as authors, and these three have co-authored papers in various combinations. The sources by Burns barely mention it; the diagram in Burns 2008 is "modified from Sullivan and Lucas (2003, 2006)" and Burns has no discussion of the Kirtlandian in the text. The only independent discussions of the Kirtlandian are the two I quoted in full at the top of this section, and they say almost nothing about it. Even Longrich, who also studied dinosaur fossils in the Kirtland formation, does not mention the Kirtlandian. So it basically amounts to an idea by Sullivan and Lucas that has gained no traction in a decade. It's just not notable.

The preponderance of content in this article discusses relevant formations. My suggestion is that this article be merged into the various articles on formations. It would be fine to mention the proposed land-vertebrate age in Kirtland Formation, preferably with the skeptical comments included. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:20, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, the Kirtlandian has not been used much by anyone, but that doesn't mean it has gained no traction. Older and supposedly more notable land vertebrate ages have even fewer publications mentioning them, mostly because land vertebrate ages are not extremely important with regards to the more popular things like animal descriptions or phylogenetic analyses. IJReid  discuss 17:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The status of other ages isn't relevant here. The bottom line is neither of us have managed to find a single independent source with significant coverage of this subject. Maybe it will be notable in the future, but right now it isn't. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:40, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * But there is, Russell 1975. It doesn't mention the Kirtlandian by name, but it describes what is the gap at that time, which Sullivan & Lucas name in 2003. IJReid  discuss 23:02, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * So the independent coverage for an age based on a dinosaur fossil is a paper from 30 years earlier that describes a gap in the mammalian record? That's pretty thin. RockMagnetist(talk) 23:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Just a comment from someone dealing with GA requests. Notability is not a GA criteria, so I have removed the request. If you doubt the notability then it needs to go to AFD (unless a merge or redirect is decided here). This is a year old so unless an editor here wants to take it to afd I will remove the tag. AIRcorn (talk) 09:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * ping didn't work for me, maybe this will. I don't feel like AFDing this so its up to someone else to decide. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 14:48, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * (Let's see if my ping works!) I suspect that the only reason notability is not a GA criterion is that it did not occur to anyone that a non-notable article could get a GA nomination. But the lack of response in a year seems reason enough to remove the request. RockMagnetist(talk) 15:37, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As for an AfD, I think that a merge into the articles on the Kirtland Formation and Fruitland Formation would be the best solution. At the very least, this article should make it clear that the Kirtlandian is only a proposed land-vertebrate "age", and that there is plenty of skepticism not only about the Kirtlandian itself but ages based on dinosaur fossils in general. But I don't have the time right now to work on that. RockMagnetist(talk) 21:31, 16 May 2018 (UTC)