User:Davidsma mcmaster/sandbox

Article Evaluation, Geological Time Scale:

- This is a system to relate chronological time from our understanding of the beginning of the planets existence to the present date, and relating it to stratigraphy.

- there are four eons, which are divided into epochs, eras, and periods.

- major time boundaries are set by extinction events

- stratigraphic observations made by geologist Lyell were some of the first to de-bunk the creationist theories that the earth was six to seven-thousand years old.

- The Anthropocene is the relatively newly proposed epoch with which we are currently living. It has been proposed that our human (anthropogenic) influence is what has divided the Anthropocene from the previous epoch, however debates as to when this actually occurred is still under debate.

Things out of date:

- there have been more recent, more accurate dates given to the exact age of the planet then the 2001 article.

Missing:

- some citations just say "citation needed"

links:

- all links seem to work correctly

Biased/viewpoints:

- none found.

- links to sources all seem relatively unbiased, as this is not a very controversial topic influential writing is not expected to be seen and it isn't.

Talk Page:

- This is a relatively introductory subject into the earth sciences, however it is relatively difficult to grasp and comprehend as a human lifespan is almost infinitesimal to the entirety of the timescale. Due to these facts, a lot of the talk is related to the images at the beginning of the article that attempt to visualize the timescale in various ways

- in class it has been mentioned that there is debate on when the Anthropocene began, however in the article it does not delve into this issue in depth.

 Week 4: 

Article Selection: Oxygenation (Environmental)

Is the articles content relative to the topic?

The article content is relevant to the topic, however it seems as though it is only really giving examples of environmental oxygenation through fresh water aquatic species, rather than a wholistic approach of how increased and decreased oxygenation could affect larger scale systems in the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. As well the article fails to mention the oxygenation of our planet through Earth history, this is an important detail that should be touched on.

Is it written neutrally?

The article itself does not seem to carry any bias with it other than the oddly specific example that was provided, although this is not necessarily a bias rather than a lack of research completed on the subject as a whole.

Does each claim have a citation?

Not every claim has a citation, there are a few claims within the article that have "citation needed" written beside them. There are other claims throughout the article as well where some citations could be added, just to spruce up the article a little bit and make some claims a little more verifiable.

Are the citations reliable?

Notably some of the most reliable citations are those that come from primary research studies published within peer reviewed journals, however some other sources like large scientifically driven government organizations and the UN can be considered relatively reliable as well. The sources in this article include 2 reliable government organizations and 4 peer reviewed articles. These resources are noted as reliable, however the link to one of them does not work making it difficult to find.

References:

There were four major stages that occurred throughout earth history, leading to the oxygen levels within the atmosphere that we know today. Each one of these stages are considered oxygenation events.

Article Selection: Oxygen (saturation)

Is the articles content relative to the topic?

The articles content is relative to the topic, it goes through describing what oxygen saturation is, and applies it to both the medical field as well as the environmental field. The only thing that is worth noting is that the article is very short, oxygen saturation in the environmental field plays a role in more than just aquatic systems and is a relevant topic of study or measure in more than just aquatic systems.

Is it written neutrally?

Yes the article is written neutrally, there does not appear to be any inherent bias within the article itself.

Does each claim have a citation?

No, not every claim has a citation, there are locations within the article where it is noted that a citation is needed but there is no citation filling it. As well there are some claims that have links but are not cited, which could or should probably be cited.

Are the citations reliable?

There are few citations, however they do appear to be reliable, the links work and are pointing in the correct location and all of the links lead to primary research from peer reviewed scientific journals.

References:

- soil under anaerobic conditions will degrade organic material much slower then soil under aerobic cditions.

Article Selection: Environmental Geology

Is the articles content relative to the topic?

The article content is relative to the topic, however it is extremely short. What could be added is more on what environmental geologists study, and what industries they might be involved with.

Is it written neutrally?

The article is written neutrally, there is no detected bias throughout. Almost sounds like someone's base understanding from a related industry on what environmental geologists are.

Does each claim have a citation?

Not every claim has a citation, however there are very few claims and none of them are about primary research.

Are the citations reliable?

The single citation provided is from a text book, this is a relatively reliable source of information however it is suspect that there is literally only a single citation for the entire thing.

References:

There are many government organizations like APGO that uphold a level of ethical standards for their governing regions, which ensure environmental geologists are ethical. In being a member many more job opportunities are open, and a strong network of individuals will often supprt others in the community.

 Week 5: 

Adding a citation:

Wiki page:Oxygen (saturation), Added the following statement; Similar to water, oxygen concentration also plays a key role in the break down of organic matter in soils. Higher levels of oxygen saturation allow for aerobic bacteria to persist, which break down decaying organic material in soils much more efficiently than anaerobic bacteria. Thus soils with high oxygen saturation will have less organic matter per volume than those with low oxygen saturation. This can be seen in the history page.

Copyedit an article:

Wiki page: Oxygen (saturation), published changes/edits to the wikipedia page can be seen in the history section of the page:

Finalizing a topic:

The topic I will use for the final wikipedia assignment is Tempestite. I can very easily link this to earth systems, paleoclimatology, and expand on the geology through primary literature.

Peer Reviews:

User talk:Camillegiuliano/sandbox

This is a fantastic introduction into paleoendemism and what paleoendemism is. I was unaware of the phenomena until reading your introduction to the subject, as I have taken less environmental courses throughout my undergrad. What would be a powerful addition is a more detailed example of anthropogenic paleoendemism. An alternative could be finding an approximation of how many species have been anthropogenically affected in this way.

User talk:Varelasara/sandbox

This is a great start to glacial lakes. It would be interesting to add to this our understanding of how glacial lakes evolve through time, as well as our understanding of how glacial lakes are changing with climate change. Are we to expect more glacial lakes with ice retreat throughout coming years? Have more glacial lakes come about  in the past 100 years with ice retreat? Are these change affecting the ecosystems you have already mentioned in any way?

My Article: Tempestites

Tempestites are studied throughout sedimentary geology, and are storm deposits that can be recognized throughout the rock record. The deposit gets its meaning from the word tempest which simply means a violent storm, the tempestite describes the preservation and physical representation of a violent storm event (tempest) within the rock record. Tempestites can be preserved within a multitude of sedimentological environments, including delta systems, estuarian systems, coastal environments, deep sea environments, and even fresh water lacustrine environments. Tempesites most often form in wave dominated delta systems and are preserved within the sedimentological record below fair weather wave base and above storm weather wave base. They are commonly characterized by hummocky cross stratified beds that have an erosive base, and can form under combined flow regimes. This erosive base is often seen in the form of gutter casts.

Sequencing:

Tempestites had been identified in the rock record for a long time, however the exact sequence of sedimentary structures that are commonly seen in the rock record, known as the idealized sequence, wasn't described until 1979 by Dott and Bourgeois. This idealized sequence follows the order of a hummocky cross stratified layer (H) often with sole markings on the base, followed by a planar laminated layer (F) synonymous to the lower place bed, followed by a cross laminated layer (X) preserved as ripple marks in plan view, and finally topped with a muddy layer (M) which is generally interpreted to be caused by suspensions settling of finer material during the waning period of the storm. Each one of these sedimentary structures can be affected by bioturbation, when organisms living in the sediment at the time burrow through it. Bioturbation, can be a great indicator of the depth of the water column the tempestite was deposited in, in a given study area, through the use if ichnology, as certain organisms will only persist at certain depths and will generate unique markings within the sedimentary structures that can be identified. However too much bioturbation can wipe out the preservation of the sedimentary structures and essentially making the bed massive, making the confident interpretation of a tempestite much more difficult for geologists. Tempestites can also amalgamate due to their erosive bases and this will cause for portions of the idealized H-F-X-M sequence to repeat, as each storm event has eroded down into the sediment that was deposited by the last, and incorporating that sediment into its own deposit.

Significance and Usage:

Tempestite deposits are very useful for aiding in paleoecological and paleogeographica l interpretations. As storms that generate tempestite deposits can only form in between 5 degrees and 20 degrees north and south latitude (with even the largest 1000 year storm only being preserved upwards of 35 degrees latitude), accurate recognition of a tempestite deposit within the rock record allows for confident interpretation of a range of latitudes. Since hummocky cross stratification forms during the combined flow and waning oscillatory flow current regimes, the preserved amplitudes of their hummocks and swales are reflective of the storm intensity. Once it is understood where the deposit in question was deposited relative to the paleo-shoreline, which can usually be done using the ichnological data preserved in the same location, the hummock amplitudes/wavelengths, grainsize (decreases with increase in paleo water depth), and bedding thickness (decreases with increase in paleo water depth) can be used to estimate the storm intensity/energy. An understanding of the intensity of past storms has large implications for our understanding of how storm intensity might change with climate change occurring today. During the Cretaceous, CO2 levels were much higher and the global temperature was much higher. With an understanding of how storm intensity changed throughout this time period towards today, we can begin to understand how it will change with our changing climate.

Tempestite deposits are also highly sought after petroleum resevoirs, as they are large laterally continuous sheet like deposits that have the potential to hold high volumes of petroleum with good permeability and porosity.

Reflective Essay:

Throughout the process of completing the Wikipedia article, much was learnt about the ins and outs of Wikipedia, how it operates, and what functions it can serve. The first portion of the article writing process was to become familiar with the editing processes of Wikipedia, including how sandboxes work, how critiquing works, and what uses critiquing has for Wikipedia. Specifically while critiquing an article I looked for articles that were relevant to earth systems but were under evaluated or poorly written, thus being classed as stub articles. Critiquing the stub articles is generally easy as there are not a lot of editors paying attention to the article itself and they are generally not controversial topics that people pay close attention to for content verification. This is both good and bad and why it is good or bad is dependent on the editor, within these articles it may take a long time for someone to come along that has enough expertise in the niche topic to be able to correct either large or small mistakes thus making these articles a little less reliable as far as information goes then the articles that have a lot of editing traffic. This is very useful knowledge to have and something I hadn't really considered a whole lot in the past when reading Wikipedia articles for quick information, however from now on I will always look at the editing traffic just to gain a feel for the expertise of the person or persons paying attention to the article, which will give an indication of content reliability. Once familiarized with this process, the actual writing of the article began. A good summary of my contributions are outlined above, but essentially I went about the process in a fairly step wise fashion. First I found the references and resources I was planning to use to write, I started by writing a good introduction to the subject matter of my topic using the review paper. After a week or so of reading the other resources and becoming more familiar with some of the primary research completed on the subject matter, I then edited and infilled with the more detailed information. Finally in the last editing phase I corrected some grammar and I added as many links to other relevant Wikipedia pages that I could find and moved the article from my sandbox onto the actual subject page. The class did do a peer review, however no one decided to review my article, and I have not received any feedback from the Wikipedia community. The feedback that I have heard from other students is that Wikipedia editors do not like the use of primary research articles because they think that these articles can be untrustworthy as in some cases not enough research has been completed. This is, in my opinion, ignorant of the Wikipedia community and promotes poor scientific practices, as published primary research is peer reviewed by professors who are experts in the subject matter. Even though it is known that primary research can be wrong, what should be promoted is proper background research allowing for proper compilation of primary resources following a literature review format. Ultimately throughout this process I learnt a lot about the subject matter that I wrote about, tempestites, and I also learnt about how effective building a network of links from article to article in Wikipedia can be. This is particularly useful for geologists and environmental scientists as these subjects are integrated sciences and thus allowing for these netwroks of links to connect articles to other articles builds a strong connection of information allowing for insights to be made that otherwise may have been overlooked.