Template talk:Geological history of Earth/Archive 1

Comments
Hi! I have a few questions about the way the units of the geologic timescale are listed here:
 * The Quarternary has at the moment an unclear status, however, the ICS will most likely decide it to be a third period in the Cenozoic, containing two epochs: Pleistocene and Holocene. (I changed that)
 * The subdivisions of the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian epochs are only regionally used and are not recognized by the ICS. The subdivision of the Carboniferous period into stages can be seen in the timeline in the article Carboniferous.
 * The Hadean eon and its subdivisions are only used when the Moon is concerned (exept for the timescale by Harland et al 1989, which is no longer used). It should be left out. The Precambrian has no official status any longer and should also be left out.
 * Why is the Phanerozoic not put in the same level as other eons? Woodwalker (talk) 10:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I was trying as faithfully as possible to adapt the table seen here into a template. ~ S0CO ( talk 04:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You can find the official (ICS) one here: . Woodwalker (talk) 08:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Up or down chronology
Just a style point. The three pull-down-able tabs are ordered such that the oldest is at the bottom, but when you open a tab, the oldest eras/periods/epochs appear, counter-intuitively, at the top. It might make more sense to apply the same top-to-bottom "arrow of time" at both levels. Cheers, --P LUMBAGO 13:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Add word "Eon" to Phanerozoic name
It is an eon, but for Precambrian time we have eons (units of the same rank) in a left column rather than as horizontal bars. So, we might as well type out "Phanerozoic Eon" for the sake of clarity. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 18:47, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Colors
Can you guys change the colors from ICS to USGS Standard or revert colors on geolgoic time scale to this set because the colors on the geologic time scale does not corrspond to the colors on this template. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 22:01 February 17 2013 (UTC) 17:01 2/17/2013 EST

Now successfully completed! Please read this comment before you try to revert to other colors. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 23:18 March 3 2013 (UTC) 6:18pm 3/04/2013 ES

Dubious dates
I have corrected the chart for the recent ICS change in the Tonian/Cryogenian boundary, but there are still some problems. ICS shows the Hadean just as -4600 to 4000, whereas this chart shows a detailed breakdown of the period into 3 sub-periods. This division is not shown in either of the sources cited, the 2014 ICS chart and the (very out of date) UGS chart. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:14, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Where should this navbox be used?
I started a discussion at WT:WikiProject Geology. Please feel free to join in that discussion. —hike395 (talk) 13:55, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

New Simple and Detailed Templates
FWIW - an alternative template - which may be as simple as the present one - but more accurate? - has been created => as follows:

ALSO - a more complete - and detailed template - has been created - which may be useful in some form (at some time) - or may not be useful based on a "recent discussion" (due to mobile versions, navbox and complexity issues) => as follows:

Although the templates may not be useful at the moment, Comments are *always* Welcome of course - In any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:32, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Template Layout
Can you contributors move the Epochs in the Phanerozoic Era to its own section in its Periods. Would this be better? I do let you try to get this template auto collapse hidden state and get the Precambrian ,Phanerozoic, Paleozoic , Mesozoic , Cenozoic collapsible. 24.218.110.195 (talk) 02:08 March 8 2013 (UTC) 9:08pm 3/7/2013 EST


 * Thanks for the useful draft, but I have a few queries


 * 1 It seems a bit out of date. It does not take account of the change in the Tonian/Cryogenian boundary in the 2015 ICS chart at . I do not know whether there are other changes.


 * 2 The ICS chart shows no division of the Hadean into periods, but the periods in this chart does not star them as not recognised by the ICS.


 * 3 I am puzzled about the links to sources at the end. The first appears to go to a short passage of Chinese or Japanese, the second to the Wiki article on the ICS and then says retrieved 2012, which would make it very out of date.


 * 4 What is the source for divisions not recognised by the ICS?


 * 5. What does the red link "Chorons" mean? Dudley Miles (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Proposal for changing the Precambrian levels
This template is useless for the Precambrian. I looked at it to see the place of the Tonian in relation to other periods, and was surprised to find it missing. It is obviously sensible to delete the bottom two classifications (epochs and stages) for the Precambrian as none are recognised by the IUGS, but I cannot see any reason to omit periods such as the Edicacaran, Cryogenian and Tonian, which are recognised by the IUGN at. I suggest dividing the Precambrian into its three eons, Proterozoic, Archean and Hadean as the top levels, with the eras as the second level and periods as the third. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Navboxes are not about seeing relationships or officially recognized entities. They are for readers to navigate between articles (see WP:NAVBOX). Adding more details to this navbox will make it less useful to our readers (at least, according to consensus at recent discussions here, here and here. Therefore, I would oppose the addition of Precambrian periods to this navbox. If you wish to discuss further, I would recommend bringing it up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology, although I wouldn't hold out much hope that the recent consensus will change. —hike395 (talk) 05:26, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * In that case, surely the template should not be linked in the article on the Tonian, as it is no help in navigating between the Tonian and related articles. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're right (per WP:BIDIRECTIONAL). Let's find uses of this template in Precambrian periods and delete them. —hike395 (talk) 11:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits and the Hadean
I have reverted edits altering the start of the Archean from 4 to 3.8 Gya as the source cited, the ICS chart, shows 4 Gya. However the template is wrong according to the source for the Hadean. The ICS chart shows it as 4 to ~4.6 Gya with no divisions into eras. The most recent edition of the ICS chart, 2016/12, is at. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Dudley. The same dispute has arisen at Talk:Archean, if you want to comment there. —hike395 (talk) 20:06, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I have commented there but other points I raised are not relevant at Talk:Archean.


 * 1. The template divides the Hadean into three eras which are not in the source. The article on the Hadean has a timeline which does not divide the eon, but mentions in the text a proposal to divide the Hadean into three eras on the basis adopted in the template. This is an article in 2010 at in the journal Solid Earth in 2010. There is no evidence that this was anything more than a proposal in one paper which was not taken up, and I think that the sub-divisions of the Hadean should therefore be deleted.


 * 2. The template starts the Hadean at 4.567 Gya, whereas the source has ~4.6 Gya. The article on the Hadean has about 4.6 Gya, and I think we should follow the source in the template. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Good points: I updated the template to follow the source. —hike395 (talk) 02:57, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh! Thanks for telling me! :)


 * Before, they says that the beginning of Archaean was 3.8 Gya and the beginning of Hadean was 4.56717 Gya ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Red Planet X (Hercolubus) (talk • contribs) 18:58, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

MOS:ACCESS and small font explanation
Hi I thought I'd explain a bit more about MOS:ACCESS and smaller fonts. The guideline states Avoid using smaller font sizes in elements that already use a smaller font size, such as infoboxes, navboxes and reference sections. This is because the classes used by these template reduce the font size to a smaller value already, and further shrinkage can reduce accessibility to those with sight problems. Now the smaller template that you added is not cumulative, so font are not reduced further. But it is a bit pointless, as it reduces font sizes to 90% while the navbox default is 88%. This is unlikely to cause problems, but it does increase the complexity of the template for no gain.

Anyway I thought I'd inform you about the guideline. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:00, 4 February 2017 (UTC)


 * First, are you sure that they don't stack? When they I use the inspector in Firefox 51, I see that "Ordovician" is 12.3167px, while "(443.8–485.4 Mya)" is 11.08px (which is 90% the size of Ordovician, which is what you would get from stacking).


 * I read through the guideline, plus MOS:FONTSIZE before doing my edit. To me, "avoid" means that there should have a very good reason to do something, as opposed to "do not" which means never do (except, of course, for very rare WP:IAR cases). The exact dates of the beginning and ends of the eons, eras, and periods are helpful for navigation, but take up a lot of space in the navbox. I wanted to make the navbox a little less crowded. Both guidelines say that the font should be no smaller than 11pt, which I believe is followed (at least in Firefox 51).


 * If we decide to keep the larger fonts for all the dates, then I think we should perhaps drop the fourth significant figure in each date, because the fourth significant figure is generally not helpful for navigation.


 * I will surface the issue at WT:WikiProject Geology to see if we can reach a wider consensus. —hike395 (talk) 17:59, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Base article for this template?
I've opened a discussion at WT:GEOLOGY. Feel free to join the discussion. —hike395 (talk) 13:38, 3 November 2018 (UTC)