Talk:Tertiary

The page on geological meaning of "tertiary" needs to begin with a common sense definition of the meaning; currently this enters only in the historical section. The very good graphic should indicate what is meant with "tertiary". Current first paragraph and the graphic use difficult and not defined scientific terminology, which is not suitable for a general introduction. - Otto Hänninen, Finland —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.167.195.60 (talk) 08:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

All this "official" nomenclature and not one reference? --Wetman 07:42, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added a reference to http://www.stratigraphy.org/gssp.htm, which is the ICS's page summarizing the recommended nomenclature. Dragons flight 07:55, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)


 * I came, intending to learn the use of the term Tertiary, I saw, but couldn't find a definition. So, edited based on info elsewhere in Wikipedia. Please improve. --Eddie | Talk 12:03, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Years
Some mention of the time periods being referred to would be nice. The original definitions may have referred to certain fossils, but some hints to the number of years which are being referred to would be helpful. (SEWilco 04:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC))
 * Clarified period and current terminology. (SEWilco 05:09, 24 March 2007 (UTC))

Thoughts on the title of this entry
The word tertiary doesn't just involve geology. Whereas this information is valuable it shouldn't be on it's own page. The title should be something like Geological tertiary time interval.

Here is the definition of tertiary

ter·ti·ar·y     /ˈtɜrʃiˌɛri, ˈtɜrʃəri/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[tur-shee-er-ee, tur-shuh-ree] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation adjective, noun, plural -ar·ies. is the name. –adjective 1. of the third order, rank, stage, formation, etc.; third.

2. Chemistry. a. noting or containing a carbon atom united to three other carbon atoms. b.	formed by replacement of three atoms or groups.

3.(initial capital letter) Geology. noting or pertaining to the period forming the earlier part of the Cenozoic Era, occurring from 65   million to 2 million years ago, characterized by the development and proliferation of mammals.

4. Ornithology. tertial. 5. Ecclesiastical. noting or pertaining to a branch, or third order, of certain religious orders that consists of lay members living in community (regular tertiaries) or living in the world (secular tertiaries). –noun

6.	(initial capital letter) Geology. the Tertiary Period or System.

7.	Ornithology. a tertial feather.

8.	(often initial capital letter) Ecclesiastical. a member of a tertiary branch of a religious order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xianous (talk • contribs) 01:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Confusion
It's pretty clear that Tertiary is not "out-of-date"; a quick Google Scholar search shows several scientific journal article titles that use the term.gpurcell

If Tertiary is an out-of-date term then what should be the proper term used instead? And why is it out-of-date? Maybe this information is included in the figures but it isn't clear to someone who knows very little about this sort of thing. Could someone edit the text and spell it out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.250.84.186 (talk) 23:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right. Tertiary has been replaced by the Paleogene Period and most of the Neogene Period as indicated by the chart. Tertiary, however, is still used on United States Geological Survey geologic maps. This should be stated with a reference. The article should definitely not include any material on life, events, or paleogeography, but should refer to the Paleogene and Neogene articles instead. - Parsa (talk) 17:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to say that the word 'up-to-date' was introduced in my own major edit a while back. I've never been happy with it.  If an expert could boldly sort out ubiquitous use of the term 'Tertiary period', no body would be happier than I. --Eddie | Talk 08:44, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Isn't it practically the same with "Cenozoic"?--92.118.191.48 (talk) 00:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the description of the term 'generally disliked' in the intro as it's not NPOV, whereas it can be shown to be formally 'deprecated' as per the reference. In any case I still quite like the term - in common with many others who grew up with it - hardly 'generally disliked'! cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I would be hesitant to use 'deprecated', as its use to mean something that is obsolete is, AFAIK, confined to the field of computer science. In light of this, I am changing it to 'disused'. Axentoke (talk) 01:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Axentoke - I think to say that it is 'officially disused' is misleading. It was for many years the 'official' and widely used and recognised term for a certain geological time interval - initially labelled as an era and latterly as a period. The term is however still widely encountered in the literature and is still widely used by both geologists and non-geologists in discussion of topics relating to that interval, though professional geologists may prefer to use the officially 'sanctioned' Pal(a)eogene or Neogene nowadays. cheers Geopersona (talk) 11:12, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, I do agree with you on this. Would something like 'noncurrent' be more suitable? Axentoke (talk) 04:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * When and why did "Tertiary" become deprecated? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.108.23 (talk) 11:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The IUGS revised the world stratigraphic guide about 10-15 years ago (The IUGS is an enormous group of committees of international geologists, palaeontologists, etc). Because of the entrenched nature of the term Tertiary it has been a little slow in being removed from common use. In some parts of the world it is a helpful term, others it is problematic and hence it was done away with. Having it divided into Neogene and Palaeogene is much better for practical uses. Yendor of yinn (talk) 03:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Main page
Someone needs to fix the main page Jeremy (talk) 22:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Reverted template Template:Cenozoic graphical timeline --Eddie | Talk 11:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

missing link?
In the first table "Events of the Cenozoic", in the right of the time scale at 5 Ma ago

the blue expression "Messinian salinity crisis"

does not go to get underlined with mousover like all other blue linking words in the table

and does not work as a link on being mouse-clicked on. --Helium4 (talk) 04:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Tertiary era
I believe that the term was first used as the third element in a fourfold division of geological time, each of which was accorded the status of 'era', thus: Primary era, Secondary era, Tertiary era and Quaternary era. However the article on the originator of this breakdown, Giovanni Arduino (geologist) refers to the divisions as 'periods' and 'series' - what language was actually used, I wonder and was there a translation issue between Italian and English?

The first two divisions were abandoned early on as scientific terms, leaving the Tertiary and Quaternary as 'eras' - they are recorded using the term 'era' in the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, which also mentions within the Tertiary era, the Eocene and Miocene 'periods' etc (now 'epochs' of course). They became 'periods' rather than eras at some point, and of course the Tertiary is now 'deprecated', as the article intro says, in favour of the internationally accepted Pal(a)eogene and Neogene. We ought perhaps to refer to the former use of the term 'Tertiary era' and not simply employ it as a redirect to the present 'Tertiary' page. cheers Geopersona (talk) 07:07, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

"Tertiaries (disambiguation)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Tertiaries (disambiguation) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 13 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:20, 13 February 2022 (UTC)