User:RockMagnetist/Priority geophysics articles

On this page I have tried to set some priorities for Geophysics articles that need improvement. These are among the most important articles by various criteria. Each link is preceded by an icon indicating the assessed quality of the article according to the Wikipedia quality grading scheme: stub,   start,   C,   B,   Good,   A and  Featured.

Some areas of geophysics are not well represented because they are highly cross-disciplinary and it is difficult (for me, at least) to isolate the geophysical content. I would love to get suggestions for other articles that should be in this list.

Most viewed
Below are some of the most viewed geophysics articles with number of hits per day and comments on their needs:
 * Alfred Wegener (1,088) - some sections are poorly sourced.
 * Geophysics (340) - missing treatments of a lot of regions (near-surface, cryosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere)
 * Geoid (339) - really skimpy on geoids of other bodies besides the Earth.
 * Seismology (337) - history section is just a list; next to nothing about earthquakes; little on methods.
 * Geosphere (303) - not sure why it is visited so much. Just a stub - does it merit more content?

"Vital" articles
Wikipedia has a centralized list of Vital articles in a hierarchy. Level 1 is really basic stuff like Life. Geophysics starts to appear at level 3, but the Level 3 articles are in pretty good shape, so I'll just focus on Level 4 articles that have not already been mentioned.


 * Geodesy - very poorly sourced
 * Hydrology - some sections are just bullet lists; others have few or no sources
 * Outer core - really skimpy; doesn't even mention the geodynamo
 * Petrology - pretty skimpy and short of inline citations.

Other basic subjects
Many of these subjects correspond to AGU sections or one of their main concerns.
 * Atmospheric electricity - large chunks are lifted from sources that are several decades old!
 * Biogeophysics - only one paragraph!
 * Geochemistry - large chunks of it are lifted from a 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica!
 * Geophysical fluid dynamics - the sections on rotation and general circulation are just lists of links to other articles
 * History of geophysics - poorly written, obscure sources
 * Ice sheet - plenty of potential for expansion
 * Mathematical geophysics - pretty skimpy so far
 * Mineral physics - nothing yet on viscosity, creep, melting, and transport properties (e.g., electrical conduction)
 * Paleoclimatology - plenty of potential for expansion
 * Paleoceanography - good start, but relies heavily on primary sources.
 * Space physics - just a few paragraphs on history
 * Tectonophysics - a couple of paragraphs
 * Volcanology - section on modern volcanology is laughably short compared to the history section.

Biographies
For these prize winners, either the article doesn't exist or it is very short. Someone editing a biography of a living person should take the policy on biographies of living persons very seriously.

Kyoto Prize winners

 * Hiroo Kanamori

Vetlesen Prize winners

 * William Richard Peltier
 * Walter C. Pitman, III
 * Robert E. Dickinson
 * John Imbrie
 * Chaim L. Pekeris
 * Lynn R. Sykes

Bowie medalists

 * Syun-iti Akimoto
 * Robert N. Clayton
 * Peter S. Eagleson
 * Johannes Geiss
 * Richard Montgomery Field
 * Nickolas Hunter Heck
 * Walter Davis Lambert
 * Helmut E. Landsberg
 * Walter B. Langbein
 * Raymond Roble
 * Johannes Theodoor Thijsse
 * Donald L. Turcotte
 * George P. Woollard

Other sources for ideas

 * List of geophysicists
 * Outline of geophysics
 * Category:Geophysics stubs