Wikipedia:Peer review/Geology of the Capitol Reef area/archive1

Geology of the Capitol Reef area
I've been working on this article on and off for a couple years. Late last year I greatly expanded and referenced it and more recently I finally found time to upload my photos of the place to commons and add those. What else needs/should/can be done before I put this through WP:FAC? I already plan to add a couple photos to the ===Chinle Formation=== section, switch the citation method from inote to and give the article one more copyedit before I nominate. Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. --mav 13:13, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Two things I can see:
 * Footnotes are a strong requirement these day at FAC
 * Just noticed you use inote
 * Most of the important formations seem to be red links, which I'd be iffy about (but the article itself is sound)
 * Circeus 17:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Each formation deserves its own article, thus they are linked. That these articles do not yet exist is only an indication that Wikipedia has poor coverage in this area. I do plan to create articles for each formation, but only after I've written a few more geology articles for Utah. The reason is simple - formations are not monolithic; they differ in composition, thickness and even age depending on where you look. So in order to write an article on a formation one must be familiar with several examples of how the formation manifests itself. Comparing and contrasting these examples is part of what a good formation article would do. -- mav 05:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks pretty good, though you don't have to switch the inotes, it's not required, though people will certainly comment at FAC. The only thing I saw is try to eliminate the short paragraphs wherever possible. Anything less than 3 sentences doesn't really stand on it's own well. I don't see any problem with the red links as long as they really are worthy of their own article. A lot of people probably don't remember the days when almost every link was a red link. - Taxman Talk 20:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks :) I went ahead and switched to the standard ref format ; doing so was very easy (two find and replaces). I don't like short sections either, so I combined two one paragraph sub-sections into larger subsections. I remember the red link and even question mark link days well. :) -- mav 05:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Another outstanding effort. I would have say that I too find the red links a bit too numerous, but it is a lot to ask that all of them be sub articled in sort order just to make them blue. I think we have switched from ref/note to cite/note style in a number of articles. The article is a good size and the images are excellent. I would try to condense the many paragraphs as well. I looked over the information and cross referencing the references provided, it appears accurate, I have two of those books. Be cautious about words that will need clarification for the average reader who knows little about geological terms. Words like "friable" may need elaboration. I would do a subarticle on monoclines and Cardonate rock...or is that Carbonate? Also, a few weblinks to NPS pages but their service appears to be down as of this post. Good work.--MONGO 02:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the compliment. :) See above about the red link issue, ref method and condensing. Part of my copyedit will be to give context to jargon and check links. --mav 05:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * With that done looks like a sure FA to me. - Taxman Talk 17:54, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know which area of the country Capitol reef is in, so I don't need to go to another article. -Ravedave 23:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point. Fixed. --mav 23:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I like that the article seems to consistently use a chronological organization, saving the structural developments for last, after the sediments have been deposited. I would watch out for passive-type sentences, such as "The passive continental margin went active when" or "then, as the sea deepened, limestone, resulted." (also a unnecessary comma there after limestone) Rather than red-linking to monocline, you could link to fold (geology), which defines what a monocline is, along with other types of folds. I think that link, along with a link to the geologic time scale, should be someplace in the article. When discussing the erosion resulting in the modern landforms, I would emphasize the work that flash floods and landslides/rock falls accomplish, as opposed to implying that the deep, straight-walled canyons and high pour-offs are the result of continuous, steady trickles of creeks and rivers (see gradualism vs. catastrophism). Also the mention of basalt boulders from Thousand Lake Mountain that "that were subsequently deposited over the park area by various processes" is confusing. Did the glaciers do the depositing over the park area? How big were these glaciers? Can we specify these "various processes" any futher without getting into too much detail?

One of my personal gripes about the articles on the southern Utah parks, and this goes back to what mav talked about above, is that all this detailed geologic information is found in articles attached to a particular park, whereas the formations do not stop at the park boundaries. Yes, the Navajo sandstone in Zion is different than what you find in Capitol Reef, but these articles all are telling the same basic story. Don't get me wrong, the work done on this article and others like it is great, but what I'd really like to see is a "geology of the Colorado Plateau" article, separate from Colorado Plateau, which summarizes the basic geologic history, and then talks about the geographic variations with links to the geology of individual parks. For example, I have done some work on the San Rafael Swell, which is a small-enough article not to warrant yet another detailed history of the last 400 million years. Ideally, I could link to a general article on the geology of the Colorado Plateau, but instead I've linked to this article (Capitol Reef), even though the Swell is not in Capitol Reef National Park. -- BlueCanoe 23:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think I fixed all the issues you mentioned in your first paragraph. Thanks for the feedback. :) As for the second paragraph; yes, a geology of the Colorado Plateau article is planned. But before I write that I want to get the geology articles of every national park and monument on the plateau fleshed out (parks/monuments very close to each other will share geology articles) and at least comprehensive geology sections for every Utah state park on the plateau written. I also want at least stub articles for most of the major formations and groups on the plateau created. Only then will I be confident that I could write such an important article. --mav 22:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Please continue discussion at Featured article candidates/Geology of the Capitol Reef area