User:Utahraptor ostrommaysi/sandbox

Where's the sand?

Week 4
I have selected the Gorda Plate as my article. For a stub class article it is well-cited and somewhat detailed, so I plan on fleshing out the detail of concepts already mentioned (like the Gorda basin, intraplate faults), adding some missing content (how and why the plate is heavily deformed, comparison to Juan De Fuca plate properties) and organizing the article into relevant sections.

List of citations:
Oregon State University Gorda plate page: (actual paper page was based on: )

Internal deformation of the southern Gorda plate: Fragmentation of a weak plate near the Mendocino triple junction:

USGS on the Mendocino Triple Junction:

Americas: Tectonics History of the Juan de Fuca, Explorer and Gorda plates:

Recent large earthquakes near Cape Mendocino and in the Gorda Plate

Seismicity of the Gorda Plate, structure of the continental margin, and an eastward jump of the Mendocino Triple Junction:

Recent tectonics of the Blanco Ridge, eastern blanco transform fault zone:

Three-dimensional dislocation model for great earthquakes of the Cascadia Subduction Zone:

Late Holocene Tectonics and Seismicity, Southern Cascadia Subduction Zone:

The goal for week 4 was also start on your list of citations so you need to get going on this William Wilcock (talk) 05:06, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Week 3
You made 2 good additions to the Hikurangi Margin article stub William Wilcock (talk) 01:26, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Week 2 Notes
Plate Tectonics : Relatively well-cited (although there is always a place for more citations). The citations are mostly scientific papers and the rest are (apparently) trustworthy secondary book sources. The article is broken up into subtopics, but the subtopics under "driving forces" and "development of the theory" could be further broken up. Biogeography is severely underrepresented. The diagrams and pictures are relevant, although the second magnetic stripe image is not clear. Current discussions on the talk page include a possible error of a value, whether to include alternative (and probably pseudoscientifc) views on a subject, someone requesting to put their own work into the article, and various other edit requests and debates. The article is rated C-class. I was surprised to see that rotation of the earth and tidal forces have been considered as driving forces, and that the evidence for mantle convection is not as clear-cut.

Transform Fault : Many parts of the article are cited, but the citations only point to a few sources. The sources appear to be of good quality. Most of the article is relevant, but the "transcurrent faults" subheading could be a single sentence in the introduction linking to a separate article. The article is written neutrally, although Tuzo's work is described as "groundbreaking," which is punny but definitely an opinion. The background section could be expanded, at least by moving some of the introduction to the example section to it. The mechanics section is only two sentences, and could be expanded with a more technical explanation. The last conversations on the talk page are from 2008. Out of four comment threads, only two are relevant to the article. One comment is misspelled and written in all caps, and another comment is asking for homework help. The article is not rated. In my prior Earth Science classes transform faults are usually discussed in context with other parts of plate tectonics as a system, as opposed to in isolation like this article.

''You have written two clear and succinct critiques. You state "I was surprised to see that rotation of the earth and tidal forces have been considered as driving forces" - Me too, this section is pretty obscure and I not sure why it features so prominently''. William Wilcock (talk) 06:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)