Talk:Obduction

Obduction vs Subduction
What's the hell difference between obduction and subduction? (preceeding comment unsigned and of unknown age, presumably before 7 October 2010)
 * Obduction is the process by which oceanic crust is emplaced (basically dumped) onto the continental crust, subduction is the 'standard' end for most oceanic crust, where it is brought down into the mantle and recycled.Jackdann88 (talk) 13:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Would it be correct to say that say that obduction involves continental crust being subducted below oceanic crust?DubleH (talk) 03:09, 21 August 2021 (UTC) Or does the oceanic crust/lithosphere often get shoved somewhere in the middle of the continental plate, between layers?DubleH (talk) 03:18, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Rewrite for clarity
I found the previous version to be inconsistent and essentially unreadable. Hopefully I have improved. More work needed.Vsmith 02:30, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * would it be valuable to have a 'cartoon' of how an ophiolite is emplaced? I found it easier to understand when someone drew a picture!Jackdann88 (talk) 13:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What's missing is a general sense of what is going on. There is a lot of geologic jargon but it does not seem to connect to present the concept. The etymologies of the English words selected by the geological flying fickle finger of fate are usually a clue to the geological special meaning. For example, subduction means that one thing is "led under" another. Obduction is a "leading up against" where one land mass does not go under another, but is emplaced against it joining the two. So, if someone could write it according to the general sense that would be a big improvement. What's the matter, are you afraid of a little criticism? Cat got your tongue?Botteville (talk) 09:24, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Images up for deletion
I've nominated the images used in this article for deletion, because they are copyrighted to Elsevier. I will try to come up with some simple cartoons to replace them, but it may take a while. Mikenorton (talk) 18:46, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a simple means to overcome copyrighted drawings and that is to draw it yourself and reverse the image, put your own annotation on it - after all we all have to draw images and if you draw it it is up to you if you publish and a way round any possible query is to add a note "Based on a drawing / image in ....." and then add "Drawn by your name"The Geologist (talk) 12:19, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the "see fig **" bits as the referenced images have been deleted. Vsmith (talk) 21:11, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Reference problems
The references are all from 1971 -76 and thus rather dated. Also the "Dewey, J. F., 1975" ref has an "(in press)" note attached ... seems problematic. I've also removed the 1969 McKenzie ref as it says nothing re: obduction and predates the concept. Vsmith (talk) 21:11, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Diagrams needed
Some diagrams are needed in this article to illustrate the processes. Fig (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 8 August 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Consensus is against moving this page. (non-admin closure) – Ammarpad (talk) 09:42, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Obduction → Obduction (geology) – The geology article is no longer the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Obduction (video game) consistently gets |Obduction over three times the page views, and is more developed with more sources. Additional question: Should Obduction be a disambiguation page, or should the video game article be considered the primary topic? I'm conflicted on that. WanderingWanda (talk) 01:14, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Contemporary topics (like the video game) should not displace long-standing scientific topics or the like. The hatnote system is fine for editors to find the video game article. Changing the name just doubles the effort for those trying to find the geology article. --M asem (t) 01:26, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC states that "Wikipedia has no single criterion for defining a primary topic". Although one commonly used criterion is indeed usage (i.e. popularity), another commonly used WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criterion is "long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term", which definitely favours this geological article as the primary article not the video game article. Therefore, it is not yet possible to decide which article should be the primary article, and consensus must be found before making any changes to article names.
 * As far as source reference citations are concerned, I and WP:RELIABLE favour quality over quantity. The geology article's sources are peer-reviewed academic journal articles; the video game article's sources are mostly gaming hobby magazine articles. Google Scholar lists 21,500 academic articles about geological obduction, so adding text and sources to the geological article on Wikipedia is only a matter of editors' time and effort, not a problem of non-existence of sources.
 * I think that a disambiguation page is not needed because there seem to be only the geology and the video game article with "obduction" in their title, so I think hatnotes are enough. Also, I notice when I do a search in Wikipedia, both articles are listed in the drop down search box and it seems very easy to just select the appropriate article — GeoWriter (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I don't think that anyone would suggest that the geology article couldn't be improved, but that's a matter of time and effort by editors, not due to a lack of high-quality sources as GeoWriter says above. I don't see a problem here, so let's not fix what isn't broken. Mikenorton (talk) 19:07, 10 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Misleading image of subduction showing an accretionary wedge
After adding the image Subduction-en.svg to the French version of this page, it was promptly removed by User:Géodigital, an editor with an education in geology and a good knowledge in the field of plate tectonic. During our discussion about the reason of this suppression, he kindly explained me why this diagram is incorrect and misleading: hereafter, as a feedback for Wikipedia English, a translation of part of our discussion in the French language (quote).

"'Obduction occurs when the stresses are reversed during continental collision (Alpine model) or by the covering of a continental block driven by an oceanic lithosphere in subduction (New Caledonia). But in both cases the illustration and its legend invoking the accretionary wedge of a subduction is wrong. The basic error appearing in the introduction of this article is to relate the process of obduction to the formation of the accretionary wedge which takes place during an oceanic subduction. Moreover, the majority of the cited references do not mention this process. The use of a figure presenting a subduction zone is therefore misleading and does not conform to scientific knowledge which suggests that the obduction processes take place after the phase of oceanic subduction.' (translation of a part of our discussions in French (source: Discussion utilisateur:Géodigital#Obduction : retrait de la figure Subduction-fr2.svg))."

So, the contents of the page on obduction, and especially its introduction mentioning an accretionary wedge, need to be corrected taking into account the comment of User:Géodigital. Does someone know a better figure that could replace the present one (Subduction-en.svg)? A sad, but logical, alternative would be to simply remove this nice but misleading image (showing an accretionary wedge) from the page, even if this image was a finalist in Picture of the Year 2017 and was also selected as picture of the day on Wikimedia Commons for 4 March 2019. What do you think? Best regards, Shinkolobwe (talk) 22:46, 23 October 2022 (UTC)