Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Volcanoes/Archive 3

Milestone Announcements
I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 (t, c) 10:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

FAC
I have nominated Nevado del Ruiz for FA. Those interested can comment here.  Ceran  thor 17:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Workgroup?
I'm interested in creating a workgroup for Volcanism of Hawaii, based here. I'de like to tackle the topic, but I can't do it all by myself! So far this is only a proposal. Also going out to WP:HAWAII. Cheers, ResMar 00:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review of Loihi now open. ResMar 22:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Off like a charm. Res Mar 19:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

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Template request
A template footer listing the seven volcanoes of the island of Hawaii within a larger Hawaii volcanoes template for all of the Hawaiian islands would be helpful. As an example, for the Island of Hawaii entry, we would have the following: Mahukona, Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, Mauna Loa, Kilauea, Loihi. Viriditas (talk) 11:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You know what else would be awesome, if anyone knows how to code it, would be a template like the one for current events or current warfare, only for currently erupting or otherwise active volcanoes. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:54, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, I'd try, but I'm no good at coding templates :( ResMar 14:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Template:Hawaiian volcanism. I've gone around and translucated all of em'. It includes a little bit more then just Hawaii island, though. ResMar 16:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Regarding the second one; I could experiment on that I guess... ResMar 20:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It IS posssible, see my sandbox. The promlem is wheras getting longitude is easy, the fact that I have no clue what the aspect ration is makes it very difficult to calculate latitude. Res Mar 23:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

mud volcanoes
Are mud volcanoes meant to be included in this list? Baratang is described in Wikipedia as a mud volcano, but it is included in the list of volcanoes in India. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Mud volcanoes, though rare, are certainly volcanoes. Just no lava. You can go ahead and add it; but in general, those lists are pitifully incomeplete. ResMar 23:45, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's already there - I thought that you might not want it. One wouldn't include flying fox is a list of fox species. By analogy, I thought that as mud volcanoes are a different phenomenon to volcanoes one would wish to exclude mud volcanoes from a list of volcanoes. See also sand volcanoes, geysers, salt glaciers, and oil, gas and tar seeps, for other non-volcanic eruptive processes. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well...the anology to a geyser is certinly befitting...OK, I guess it doesn't belong. The feature has its own category, anyhow. Res Mar 14:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Reclassification
I just finished expanding Kohala (mountain), but I'm not sure it qualifies for B-class yet. Also, do you guys think it's long enough for an eventual GAN?

Also, I'm looking for feedback on Loihi. It seems set, but I'm worried about FA technical criterea. ...And on Hawaii hotspot, too. Res Mar 18:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Kohala needs some expansion and fine-tuning. The other two need to be reviewed not only by me. The marking period at my school just ended so after I finish my homework tonight I'll be sure to copy edit as best as possible for the moment.  Ceran  llama chat post 19:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. There's a bit of a lack of material regarding Kohala, people are always drawn to the other four rather then this dead volcano; but then again, that's what Viditras is good at. I didn't say that I was in any rush to get it promoted. Do you really live in Luxemburg? School's been out for a few days already in New York. Res Mar 19:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I live in Joisey! I just appreciate Luxembourg's wealth for such a tiny country.  Ceran  llama chat post 22:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Loihi Seamount
Loihi Seamount is on its FAC nom; comments very welcome! <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 22:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria
Is a kimberlite pipe considered to be in the scope of this project? (e.g. Jagersfontein Mine) Thanks  Socrates2008 (  Talk  )   22:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I came here to post more or less the same question. User:Gilgamesh has added a lot of diamond mines to volcano categories, apparently on the basis of how the diamonds were formed a billion years ago. It seems very misleading to me to make no differentiation between (for example) Jagersfontein Mine and Prince Edward Islands. He's also categorizing many of the mines as diatremes, which, being a subset of the larger Category:Volcanoes, seems to make the [Volcanoes of ] category redundant. --DeLarge (talk) 11:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think these are probably within the scope of the project. We've included a wide range of topics in the past, including billion-year-old dike swarms, so age alone is no barrier. But I wouldn't be happy adding the diatreme category without covering the geology in more detail than the Jagersfontein Mine article currently does. A category should have some explicit support (preferably sourced) within the article's text; see Argyle diamond mine and Ekati Diamond Mine, for example. Another option would be to split the geological information into a separate article from the mining activities, as in Jericho Diamond Mine and Jericho pipe. I agree the "Volcanoes of " category is redundant and verges on inappropriate for a lot of these; "Volcanism of " might be a better fit. -- Avenue (talk) 12:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, by the way, I already do that. I didn't add every single diamond mine article.  Only those that were said to have come from kimberlite pipes or another kind of diatreme.  I was very careful. - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the Jagersfontein Mine article doesn't explicitly mention volcanoes, pipes or diatremes. The closest bit I can see is this sentence: "Among geologists, Jagersfontein is known as a prime locality for mantle xenoliths, some of which are believed to have come from depths of 300–500 kilometres (190–310 mi)." That doesn't seem explicit enough to justify putting the article in Category:Diatremes. A short sentence explaining that the deposit is a diatreme (preferably sourced) would be fine. -- Avenue (talk) 01:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll add a source. Search for Jagersfontein kimberlite on Google and there are multiple hits. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. -- Avenue (talk) 05:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It has always been my understanding that Category:Volcanoes includes specific volcanic formations ranging from modern to the very ancient. Even before I became involved in this category, there were all sorts of ancient volcanoes so-categorized.  A volcano doesn't cease being a volcano just because it's extinct.  And it doesn't really matter how long it's been extinct, whether just yesterday or for a billion years, as long as it's established to be a volcano. - Gilgamesh (talk) 21:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You know, I think there's a fundamental problem with treating only active volcanoes as real volcanoes, and extinct volcanoes as "not volcanoes anymore". It seems to trivialize the extensive science and study-worthiness of volcanoes, yielding to a "let's warn the villagers" mentality that somehow active volcanoes are more important to study than extinct ones.  Some of the most interesting studies in volcanism that I know of, are of volcanoes that stopped erupting millions of years ago.  Some examples are La Garita Caldera, Siberian Traps, Tweed Volcano, volcanic plugs, Olympus Mons, just to name a few.  If volcanoes are notable to read about, then the old as well as new volcanoes are of equal worth.  Besides, we already have a category for active volcanoes.  Category:Active volcanoes.  It needn't be assumed by default that all volcanoes in existence must be active, and indeed volcanology is the study of active as well as extinct volcanoes.  A great many (if not the majority) of volcanoes that exist on our planet are extinct volcanoes, but they are still volcanoes with all the science attached. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I think part of the problem is that people typically understand the term volcano to refer to the landforms they produce, and they find categories referring to something that has worn away hard to appreciate. I agree with you that we should cover old volcanoes, and even that some fit nicely into the the existing category structure. But now that we have "Volcanism in " categories, these may be a better home for some articles. I'm thinking of things like the individual Monteregian Hills (eroded batholiths marking a hotspot trail, only some of which resulted in volcanic eruptions) or the Waitakere Ranges (an uplifted and eroded apron of submarine volcaniclastics, produced by one of New Zealand's biggest volcanoes with little other remaining surface expression). Neither of these are exactly volcanoes, but the link with past volcanism is pretty clear. -- Avenue (talk) 05:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * PS - see Talk:Monteregian_Hills for a related discussion. -- Avenue (talk) 05:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, this may be because I have no common sense (I really, really don't) but it is my fundamental understanding that a volcano is any vent where igneous rocks are extruded volcanically. It's the vent that matters, and whether that magma became actual lava that came into contact with water, or air, etc.  In that sense a volcano is not actually landform&mdash;the landform is a product of the volcanic vent.  For volcanoes of more familiar specific relief, we have categories like Category:Shield volcanoes for the landforms they create, and Category:Stratovolcanoes for the landforms they create.  If I recall, years ago, there was an editor who insisted that Category:Volcanoes must be put under Category:Mountains because "volcanoes are a kind of mountain".  But it was inappropriate, since because many volcanoes form mountains, not all do.  El Chichon is a very notable volcano in Mexico that is more or less just a pit in the ground with no associated mountain.  It doesn't seem appropriate to use Wikipedia as a means of promoting ignorance just because it's a popular conception.  We use empirical scientific criteria. - Gilgamesh (talk) 08:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with your definition of volcano (although multiple vents can be viewed as a single volcano). The difficulty my earlier examples present probably arises because the vent has disappeared, or may not even have existed, so attaching a volcano category to articles about the resulting landforms seems like a stretch. Pigeonholing things into black and white categories can run into trouble with the borderline cases, and the broader volcanism categories may provide a useful "catch-all" option for handling these. Going back to the original question, I had been concerned about diamond mines that covered a field of kimberlite pipes (not just one), but on second thought I think these are probably fine within the diatremes category (assuming there is a sourced explanation of how this is relevant in the article). -- Avenue (talk) 13:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the borderline cases are not what I've been concerned with. Kimberlite pipes are vents, are they not?  If they never vented, then they're plutonic intrusions, like batholiths. - Gilgamesh (talk) 21:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but mines are not pipes. From the first few diamond mine articles I looked at, it seemed that a fair proportion of mines exploited a field of pipes, not just a single pipe, and so a volcanism category might have been more appropriate than the relevant volcanoes one. Volcanic fields seem like a borderline case. I've looked around more since, though, and I now think more mines exploit single pipes than I initially thought. -- Avenue (talk) 08:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, that's part of why kimberlite pipe prospecting is international big business. Diamantiferous kimberlite pipes are relatively rare in the world, so it is entirely common to have a diamond mine built around just one pipe. - Gilgamesh (talk) 11:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You know, I think I know how to fix this. Some time ago, I once went on a splurge of creating an entire network of categories for Category:Volcanic plugs, including the "Volcanic plugs of " phrasing.  Why couldn't we do the same thing for "Diatremes of "? - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It is done. See Category:Diatremes.  There are still parent "Volcanoes of " categories, but if those countries have only diatremes, then the only members of those categories will be the associated diatreme subcategory. - Gilgamesh (talk) 01:57, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * There's no rush - please give people a chance to respond. I'm not convinced we need all these "Diatremes of " categories; we already have enough category clutter under this project. Have a look at Overcategorization and see what you think. -- Avenue (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It does solve the redundancy issue though. -- Avenue (talk) 05:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Having said that, I don't think it is a good solution. Splitting moderately sized categories up into dozens of very lightly populated categories makes navigation harder. There is a clear guideline against splitting by location in these cases. Please stop! -- Avenue (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I finished yesterday. So now what?  There's still the complaint that mere categories like Category:Diatremes don't show the countries they're found in, unless they have subcategories.  How do we reconcile design with the complaints of classifying kimberlite diamond mines as volcanoes?  I mean, the original complaint said to me in my talk page was that "these are not places where magma is coming out".  And yet they were places where that was happening.  I would have preferred to just ignore it originally, but then two people made a complaint at this page, and we had to deal with it.  So now what?  Would you prefer I just go back, recategorize the articles and such as simply Category:Diatremes and Category:Maars, and return the "Volcanoes of " mechanism as it originally was?  Because we either do that, or change all the "Volcanoes of " category into "Volcanism of " category, and that's a huge undertaking that might not go down well without a full-fledged name change vote.  I mean, even this WikiProject itself is WikiProject Volcanoes, not WikiProject Volcanism. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (indented into conversation) My original complaint was simply that you'd categorized Jagersfontein Mine and Big Hole as volcanoes. Those particular holes in the ground were not vents formed by volcanic activity; they were manually excavated barely 100 years ago as part of mining operations. Your own defintion above is "any vent where igneous rocks are extruded volcanically", but until 1888, there was no vent. Your categorizations did not fit your own (and my own) understanding of what a volcano is. --DeLarge (talk) 10:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The deposits these mines exploit are volcanic pipes, exposed after long erosion has stripped away the more conventional volcanic edifice that lay above. They are what remains of the volcanic vent. The hole produced by the mine is irrelevant; it is not the volcanic vent, although it does follow the pipe downward. To the layman, it may seem that there is no volcano there, but there was. Our project covers both past and present volcanoes, so the eroded pipe definitely falls within our project's scope. That answers the first question posed here, but not yours.
 * There are two related questions here: whether these volcanoes would be better covered in their own separate article (like Jericho pipe), rather than within an article that primarily covers the mine; and whether the article about the mine should fall into volcano-related categories such as and "Volcanoes of ". I think that the diatremes category would generally be appropriate (if the diatreme/pipe is mentioned in the article), in part because I'd expect the nature of the ore body to be an important characteristic of the mine. It also helps our project keep track of articles within our scope, although that reason loses force if there is a separate article about the pipe. Regarding putting the mine articles into the "Volcanoes of " category, I can see arguments for and against this. It does fit my understanding of what is (or was) a volcano, but maybe not that of many readers. Maybe the pipe is no longer a volcano, just the remnant of one, but we put dead people into categories alongside living ones too. We generally classify volcanoes by both type and location, but maybe the type is enough. None of these seem conclusive to me yet. -- Avenue (talk) 13:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep "Volcanoes of " for them. It would seem very strangely arbitrary to eliminate these from those categories when we have so many other extremely old volcanoes in the category as well.  It borders on POV to say "this seems like a volcano" and "this doesn't seem like a volcano" when we know very well they are all volcanoes.  Igneous extrusion = volcano.  Classify as such in a fully equal manner.  Period. - Gilgamesh (talk) 21:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * So now your old definition is thrown out because Jagersfontein Mine doesn't fit? Now it's merely an igneous extrusion which defines it? This is why I prefer to see reliable external sources make the decisions instead of WikiProject members. Merriam-Webster says it's a vent. Reference.com says it's a vent. The OED says its a crater or vent. Our own article (cited to the Oracle Foundation) says it's an opening or rupture.
 * There's nothing arbitrary about it. No surface vent, no categorization in, as per reliable sources. It's simply original research to do otherwise. --DeLarge (talk) 22:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You just demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of volcanic terminology. A volcanic vent is an igneous extrusion.  See, igneous rocks come in two kinds&mdash;extrusive and intrusive.  An intrusive (or plutonic) rock, like granite, intrudes into other rock, but never erupts as lava, and eventually cools there or whatever.  But an extrusive (or volcanic) rock is specifically that igneous rock that extrudes (erupts) from a vent.  Besides, Jagersfontein Mine does fit&mdash;I found plenty of sources and added them in a reference.  And kimberlite is a volcanic rock, not a plutonic rock.  Kimberlite simply cannot exist from a non-volcanic origin, so everywhere you find naturally-occurring kimberlite, you know it was a volcanic igneous extrusion in or from a volcanic vent&mdash;there is no non-volcanic kimberlite in existence.  Now, these terms are things I learned in high school geology, as a teenager.  Some of them I learned in elementary school science class before my voice broke, including what volcanic extrusion is.  Many of these terms are concepts that can be described in more than one way, for instance that a volcanic vent is a place where igneous extrusion happens.  It's not original research, it's vulcanology, and these concepts are in textbooks and widely taught in geology classes.  It's not always something you can pick up from reading a few dictionaries or watching an hour-long documentary on the Science Channel. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't know whether you were done, or if this was just a pause before moving on to split or something else by country.
 * Maybe it would be more accurate for this project to be called WikiProject Volcanology, but I like the current title. -- Avenue (talk) 02:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I just thought of something...maybe this is a fundamental complaint about how people associate volcanoes as being active. Even in vulcanology, there is no clear unambiguous line between active, dormant and extinct, except in informal terms. But you point at a certain active volcano and ask a layman to say what it is, and he'll say "that's a volcano", and then point at a long-extinct volcano and ask the layman to say what it is, he'll say something like "that's a hill" or "that's a rock" or "that's a hole in the ground". But mere ignorance of the science of vulcanology is not grounds to say "okay, these are not volcanoes", because according to vulcanology, they are volcanoes. We do have Category:Active volcanoes, Category:Dormant volcanoes and Category:Extinct volcanoes, but those are difficult to tell apart in borderline cases, and there's a potential can of worms to open when you start going around an saying "that's active", and "that's dormant", and "that's extinct". "But I thought that was extinct!" "No, it's inactive. There's a probability it will erupt again." "When? Soon?" "Maybe not in thousands of years, if ever." "So it's extinct." "*sigh* No..." Volcanoes are a popular and exciting study for many ordinary people, but vulcanology on the other hand is a deeper science that many people never really get into or care to. The crowds wanna see geysers, lava and ash, not billion-year-old rock pits in the middle of nowhere. That's boring. But it's still science, and we cover all of it. Wikipedia is not the Discovery Channel. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with a lot of what you say, and I think you're close to the root of the problem. But I also think you're missing an important point. The debate here is about which categories to use. Categories, while serving as a classification mechanism, are there to help people browse and find things. This means that the common meanings of words are important; more so than in articles, where you can explain in depth what is meant, and why. If we get recurrent queries about what is being included, that suggests we might be doing it wrong. -- Avenue (talk) 02:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe the size of each category is important too. If a category is too sparse, it seems unnecessary.  If a category is too crowded, it feels cluttered. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I have an idea. It's not going to make everyone happy, but neither did the alternative. Original status quo. Keep country-independent Category:Diatremes and Category:Maars categories, and otherwise put the diatreme and maar articles in "Volcanoes of ". Then, after the "Diatremes of " and "Maars of " categories are cleaned out, I flag them for speedy deletion. We do that, or rename every "Volcanoes of " category to "Volcanism to " country. I'd like to know if it's okay to start doing this. - Gilgamesh (talk) 01:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I like the sound of that, but let's not be too hasty. We also need to figure out what to do about the subcategories of and . This is starting to get a long way from the original question, so I'll start a new discussion section for this (unless someone beats me to it). -- Avenue (talk) 02:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, while a lot of these topics may approach at highly-academic concepts (such as diatremes), I think volcanic plugs in particular far more memorable formations because of their prominence on the landscape (or sometimes waterscape) and the fact that a great many end up having fortresses or monasteries built atop them. Volcanic plugs are impressive and gorgeous to look at&mdash;browse the Commons category. :3 However, I can see perhaps how features such as diatremes and maars are not as interesting, and that makes them less likely to be listed in tourist guides, coffee table books, etc. (things that most normal people read), and that means there are probably going to be fewer articles about them, so the categories will be smaller.  Unless there's suddenly a flurry of interest in these things, I can see how these categories don't need subcategories by country.  Seen one maar, seen most of them.  Seen one diamond mine, and you often don't care if your jewelry came from it.  See a volcanic plug, and it's an incredibly awesome topographical feature, especially if there's a landmark castle atop it. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * On second thought, I just noticed that most of the volcanic plug subcategories have just one article in them. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to collapse those subcategories into the parent category.  But might it be alright to keep subcategories that are heavily populated? - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

So now what? I'd really like to do some editing, but this still needs to be discussed and decided apparently. - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've collapsed and blanked categories that had only one member in them, and recategorized the articles in them to the category's own parent categories. If any category had two or more members, I kept them. - Gilgamesh (talk) 05:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A volcano more than a billion years old is still a volcano, even if you don't recognize it. Instead, it is likely not very noticeable because of heavy erosion. I do not find volcanoes and volcanics millions or billions of years old boring. They can be interesting and they can in fact be important in some ways, including mineralization and mining. Black Tusk (talk) 00:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly&mdash;there can be so many reasons volcanoes can be interesting. In fact, the very fact that some of them have produced diamonds as a byproduct of volcanic activity makes the associated diamond mines all the more interesting considering their volcanic origin. - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Most people living in a Precambrian shield would not normally recognize volcanoes or volcanics because they are so old, can be largely forested, buried etc. I know because I live in the Canadian Shield and I have surprised several residents mentioning volcanoes in Ontario, Quebec, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and elsewhere (e.g. Sturgeon Lake Caldera and Mount Pleasant Caldera). Most volcanics of the Canadian Shield are Precambrian age (4500-542 million years ago), but renewed volcanic activity has created diamondiferous diatremes and kimberlite fields throughout the Canadian Shield. And there will be renewed volcanic activity in the Canadian Shield once again, though not for millions of years of course. If active volcanism returned in the Canadian Shield after millions of years of dormancy, an unexpected eruption would break out and it would likely cause excitements and anxiousness, giving the fact that most residents of the Canadian Shield don't know about Canadian Shield volcanism or even Canadian volcanism in general. The remaining question would be when exactly would such an event happen. There has been extensive volcanism in the Canadian Shield in the past. The giant 1,267 million year old Mackenzie dike swarm Avenue mentioned above is one such event, which erupted basaltic lava 170,000 km² (65,000 sq mi) in area and representing a volume of lavas of at least 500,000 km³ (120,000 mi³). Yikes!&mdash;an event that huge would be a catastrophe, it is even larger than the Columbia River Basalt Group. Yet, no one in this WikiProject except me has worked extensively on Precambrian, Triassic, Jurassic, or even Cretaceous volcanism articles. Most of the attention is drawn to active volcanism with barely any attention to prehistoric volcanism. The world is more than just active volcanism. Large portions of Earth are sites of prehistoric volcanism..... Black Tusk (talk) 02:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes! And the funny thing is, I actually know about those obscure Canadian volcanoes. :P See, I can't remember exactly how I found it out, but when I realized that kimberlite (the rock of diamond mines) was volcanic, I suddenly realized that these were all volcanic articles that had not yet been properly categorized as such.  I think the revelation may have rattled a few cages among some other editors, but I believe this was a fundamental semantic misunderstanding of what a volcano is.  My part of a debate further up demonstrated that one of the complaining editors didn't understand fundamental volcanic terminology.  That's perfectly fine&mdash;a lot of people don't know these things because they never studied them.  But when a person approaches this on Wikipedia with the intention of editing it or debating it on a talk page, they should at least yield to the accredited science of the topic.  If they don't understand it, then they can still learn.  But simply not understanding it beforehand isn't an excuse for saying it should be thrown out the window altogether.  That's like destroying something you can't understand because you don't understand it, and that seems rather anti-intellectual. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If diamond mines are within the projects scope, I suggest mines mining volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits (e.g. Kidd Mine) should be included as well. Black Tusk (talk) 15:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Though there weren't very many articles I could find.  Category:Volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits. - Gilgamesh (talk) 09:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Categorising Kidd Mine this way seems defensible, because the relevant aspects of the geology are mentioned in that article, and a source is cited. But I don't agree that Rio Tinto (river) and Flin Flon (a mining town) should be put in this category, or at least not yet. Neither of those two articles mention the term volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits, or anything close to this.
 * This comes back to my earlier point that a category should have some explicit support within the article's text. The relevant quote from WP:CAT is "It should be clear from the verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories". My reading of this is that it should be clear to a typical reader of the article why the category is in place (assuming they are paying attention), and not just to people familiar with volcanological terms.
 * It shouldn't be hard to add an appropriate sentence when adding a category; you already have the knowledge ready in your head. (Ideally a source should be cited too.) It would almost always be harder for the next editor to do this than it is for you, so please don't leave it for them to do. By the way, objecting to unsupported categories is not "like destroying something you can't understand because you don't understand it"; it is more akin to complaining when you see logical fallacies within an article. -- Avenue (talk) 11:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, you're right, it should be clear. They were mentioned as such in the volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposit article itself.  It wasn't original research&mdash;it was already all there. - Gilgamesh (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Volcanoes by time period
(split off from above thread) I just had a thought. If people are confused with categorizations of volcanoes of such old age, I wonder if it might not be a good idea to add another category, such as "Pre-Holocene volcanoes". Volcanoes that were formed before the Holocene, but are necessarily extinct before the Holocene began. Since the Holocene stretches from about 10000 years ago to today, it is significant as the beginning of the Holocene was far before anything resembling recorded human history. In geological terms, even volcanoes extinct for 2000 or 3000 or even 5000 or 10000 years are "recent" volcanism, and their volcanic remnants are still fairly obvious on the landscape. And many volcanoes active and building today are younger than that. Another reason "Holocene" and "pre-Holocene" volcanism are useful labels is because many parts of the earth were only reached by humans with a written record in very recent times, making volcanism even a couple centuries ago effectively prehistoric in those regions, but they're still recent and still have a potentially active future. For instance, volcanism in the Hawaiian islands everywhere from Hawaii island to Oahu is relatively recent (with Oahu eruptions perhaps as recent as 2000 years ago), but Kauai is millions of years old and deeply eroded. It is still obviously a volcano, but erupted on a very different earth when it was active. - Gilgamesh (talk) 10:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about that as well. Some thing like Category:Quaternary volcanoes, Category:Triassic volcanoes, Category:Jurassic volcanoes or Category:Precambrian volcanoes. But lots of ancient volcanoes are probably not named, so those categories could be unnecessary. Black Tusk (talk) 16:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about those volcanoes that are notable enough to be named and such. Like Tweed Volcano, a deeply-eroded very ancient shield volcano in New South Wales.  BTW, Quaternary and Tertiary seem to be deprecated now.  They've been replaced with Neogene (Holocene, Pleistocene, Pliocene, Miocene) and Paleogene (Oligocene, Eocene, Paleocene).  The difference is that Pliocene and Miocene were moved this this period, and this period was renamed from Quaternary to Neogene. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Just imagine my delight to find you've been adding articles to the new categories I just created, as I was creating them. Thank you. ^___^ BTW, do you think that Category:Miocene volcanoes should be under Category:Extinct volcanoes or not?  I'm not certain whether all Miocene volcanoes are extinct or not&mdash;just that the vast majority are. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You know, come to think of it, I don't see why we can't have a Category:Holocene volcanoes. All active and dormant volcanoes would be assumed to be Holocene, and their categories be subcategories of Holocene volcanoes with their members not specially categorized as Holocene.  However, extinct Holocene volcanoes can be in the root of the Holocene volcanoes category. - Gilgamesh (talk) 08:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think Miocene volcanoes should have Category:Extinct volcanoes because there are Miocene volcanoes that still have the potential to erupt. Examples include the Mount Edziza volcanic complex and the Level Mountain Range. Black Tusk (talk) 04:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Alright, that's certainly fair. Individual extinct Miocene volcanoes (and indeed all individual extinct volcanoes) should be categorized as extinct. :3 - Gilgamesh (talk) 09:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's fine with me. I doubt there is lots of Miocene volcanoes that will erupt again, but some Miocene volcanoes have awakened from long periods of dormancy at least 3 million years (e.g. Franklin Glacier Volcano). Black Tusk (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Something else I have noticed is would it be appropiate to create Category:Potentially active volcanoes? I will create the category if it is necessary. Potentially active volcanoes are volcanoes that are possibly active but not yet realized, which would certainly not fit comfortably in Category:Active volcanoes and Category:Dormant volcanoes. Black Tusk (talk) 17:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was thinking that earlier too, to myself. But I was thinking Category:Volcanoes of uncertain activity. - Gilgamesh (talk) 04:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

CfD challenge
(copied from User talk:Gilgamesh)

On a related not, what's with slapping "Volcanoes of the Lake District" on any hill in the area composed of volcanic material? This is just daft. None of these are volcanoes. Yes, the area was an Ordovician island arc and back arc terrane, but the actual volcanic edifices are long gone by now. What you see remaining are glaciated plugs and flows that bear very little relationship to the original volcanic architecture. These are not volcanoes. Vast tracts of Quebec and Ontario are composed of bimodal, arc/back-arc volcanic rocks, so are we going to see Kidd Creek mine (where the terrain is flat and swampy, believe me) classed as a "Volcano of Northern Ontario"? Of course not. Unless you can come up with some pretty robust references for this, in fairly short order, I'll be putting the whole category, and probably its parent categories, up for deletion at CfD.  Pyrop e  13:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No. This has been discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Volcanoes.  It doesn't matter how old a volcanic remnant is or how ground into the crust it is.  And yes, we even discussed kimberlite mines and dike swarms.  They go in, because they are still volcanoes, no matter how old and extinct.  Please take the discussion there.  By the way, Kidd Mine is now categorized as a Volcano of Ontario.  It's been for several days, at least.  It was part of the discussion.  So was the Mackenzie Dike Swarm. It's all volcanism and it goes in.  We discussed even changing the category names from "Volcanoes of" to "Volcanism of", but "volcanoes" stuck because even if many lay people might not associate them with volcanoes, they are still technically volcanic remnants.  A volcano is a volcano, whether it erupted yesterday or two billion years ago.  It doesn't matter whether it's a nice cone shape, or if it's been twisted and contorted by tectonic and sedimentary forces and even completely converted to pancake-flat serpentine-like metamorphic rock like with greenstone belts.  It doesn't matter.  For volcanology studies, it's still important to document and categorize these remnants in a manner that makes them easy to find. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Life is far too short to wade through a huge argument like that. Just give me the condensed version of your position. My problem is that you are confusing the terms "volcano" and "volcanic". The dictionary definition, and the widely understood public understanding of the term, is that a volcano is "a mountain or hill, typically conical, having a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapor, and gas are or have been erupted from the earth's crust." (New Oxford Dictionary) It is a noun, an object, a thing. Birker Fell is not a volcano. It is composed of volcanic rocks. This is a very different thing! We are a general interest encyclopedia not a resource for volcanological studies. If you include a hill in a category called "Volcanos of..." a lay person is going to think that that particular object was itself a volcano. The same goes for all of the other fells of the Lake District. If you want to create a category called "Volcanic rocks of the Lake District" then Birker might go into that. Alternatively, if you want to include the whole Lake District in a category "Volcanoes of England" then I wouldn't have a problem. But what you have done is nuts. An individual kimberlite pipe might be classed as a volcano, sure, but a hill formed from the eroded flows of some other volcanic edifice is not a volcano. Similarly Kidd Creek might be included in a category "Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits of Ontario", it is certainly of volcanic origin, but it isn't a volcano. And you are wrong to include tectonised and metamorphosed materials in your argument. Once they stop being "a mountain or hill, typically conical, having a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapor, and gas are or have been erupted from the earth's crust." they stop being a volcano and are simply volcanic. Your category is misleading and extremely poorly applied.  Pyrop e  16:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

(end of copy)


 * Pyrop, your dictionary definiton is false, sorry. An eroded volcano would likely not have a crater and not all volcanoes are mountains. Calderas and maars are not mountains and volcanoes do exist throughout Eastern Canada. Examples include Sturgeon Lake Caldera and Mount Pleasant Caldera, and ancient volcanoes like Sturgeon are likely not very noticible because of heavy erosion. What remains of this large caldera is lava domes, lava, pyroclastic flows etc. However, I am not familiar with any volcanoes around Kidd Mine. Those volcanic deposits were formed from hydrothermal vents during the Precambrian, not magmatic volcanoes as far as I'm aware of; my dad works at one of the gold mines in Timmins. I suggest you study Canadian volcanoes for proof. Black Tusk (talk) 22:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's discuss this. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, a layman's definition is not necessarily a volcanologist's definition. We are not Wiktionary. Many of us editors, frankly, are not lay people. We are deeply immersed in the topics we study, and sometimes the orthodoxy of the field simply cannot be reconciled with whatever common uneducated conceptions of a layman might have. It's fundamentally bad science to make the scientific definitions yield to an uneducated prejudice. Part of what we try to do is educate people, rather than simply telling them what they already want to believe. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, about volcanoes being "hills or mountains". That was discussed years ago when categorizing Category:Volcanoes as Category:Mountains. It didn't work, because even many active volcanoes are just pits in the ground (such as El Chichon). A volcano is its extrusion, not its shape. As I said, you can't always go by a layman's preconceived definition. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I have a thought. If your concern is the verifiability of the volcanic outcrops are volcanoes themselves, would it not be better to instead make a Category:Lake District, categorize that in Category:Volcanoes of England, and put Lake District articles in that category? - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If by "thought" you mean "I read your suggestion above" then yes, that would be far better. I work professionally predominantly in greenstone terranes. However, I would never dream of calling the Abitibi "a volcano", because it isn't. Sure there may have been volcanoes in the area at about 2.7Ga, but they aren't there now. It is composed, in large part, of volcanic rocks. This does not make it or subdivisions of it a volcano. You yourself are abusing many terms, and I find it extremely arrogant for you to simply dismiss the public understanding of the term "volcano", especially as it is largely correct. Volcanic and volcano are not interchangeable, they mean different things. You are mixing them up and then spraying the resultant, foetid mix over any article that might conceivably have a link to volcanic rocks. You even slapped the category on Muncaster Fell, a low ridge composed of plutonic granite! You may not need a hill to form a volcano but you certainly need a vent.  Pyrop e  16:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I categorized Muncaster Fell because it contains outcrops of andesite (a volcanic rock) in addition to the majority granite. Anyway, we discussed further up the possibility of renaming articles from "Volcanoes of" to "Volcanism of", but this project already seems fairly committed to "volcanoes" in both contexts.  As for greenstone belts, even though they might not contain any single distinct volcanoes, they are still volcanic belts, and those are still categorized under the categories of volcanoes.  A belt isn't a volcano, no.  But a belt is still volcanoes, just not a single monolithic one.  And yes, I said further up to someone else, a volcano (singular) is an igneous extrusion (a vent).  It is true that in many cases (such as in the Lake District), there are no clear signs of a specific vent, but merely lots of volcanic remnants it left behind.  Still, we know the vents were there, and lacking that, the remnants are a place to study about the volcano.  It is certainly helpful though that the volcanic remnants of the Lake District are highly resistant to weathering and erosion, and the only additional strata that has covered them has been sedimentary.  Without significant tectonic modification of the strata other than minor bending, is it indeed erroneous to consider the weather-resistant outcrops as true surviving remnants of the volcanoes?  Even if one were to think they are merely lava flows, those flows still form a part of the volcanic complex that also includes vents and even volcanic cones&mdash;which are also made of cumulative lava flows and ash deposites themselves.  So we know the vent is near, just not where, but we know that what we found is a part of it, if not necessarily all of it. - Gilgamesh (talk) 17:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've created Category:Lake District, added Lake District and Category:Fells of the Lake District to it, removed Category:Volcanoes of the Lake District from all its articles and placed the category on. You are quite correct that the identity of each volcanic outcrop as an individual volcanic vent is more or less unverifiable. However, you need to realize that members of categories are not always one quantity of the topic. So not every member will represent a single volcano. Some articles may represent multiple volcanoes, and some (such as individual volcanic fells of the Lake District) may represent an unknown quantity, possibly a fraction less than one. Sometimes there just isn't enough information, but it's still relevant. Wikipedia categories aren't always a one-to-one correspondence with "is A equal to one B?" But rather, it can also be the topic at hand, so that "volcanoes of the Lake District" can mean "the study of volcanoes in the Lake District". And we already know the Lake District has more than one volcano, as it was a subduction arc. We just don't know how many there were. - Gilgamesh (talk) 17:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand that point; my main complaint was that these small subsections of one very large volcanic district are being corralled into categories whose name implies that they are individual volcanic edifices. As I said, in relation to these articles the category was badly named and/or badly applied. The comment below is a similar scenario. I'm glad you had a rethink on the category organisation, thanks for taking it seriously.  Pyrop e  19:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I do try to keep my cool. But in the future, please don't call my edits daft...  I don't have any common sense, but I'm not stupid. - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I see that Sanday (Canna) is included in the Volcanoes of Scotland category. While I can understand including Rhum (the roots of a volcano) and Eigg (I presume the Scour is the remains of a vent), Sanday is just the remnants of the lava flows of the flanks of a volcano (I forget whether it's Rhum, or one of the Cuillin centres, but Rhum seems more likely). Lavateraguy (talk) 18:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sanday? It was referenced in British Tertiary Volcanic Province.  That's the reason I added it.  Do you think it should be removed? - Gilgamesh (talk) 19:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Also Staffa and Canna if they've been put in the categories. Mention of St. Kilda, Rockall, Blackstones, etc. has been omitted from the article.
 * BTW, the only vents (bosses) in the Lake District that I know about (Cockshot Wood and Castle Head) aren't in the category at all, though I presume other vents have been identified. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm, there is no article for Cockshot Wood, and Castle Head appears to be a completely unwikified stub article for a study center (though it is in Cumbria). Anyway, I can possibly understand St. Kilda being in the British Tertiary Volcanic Province, but Rockall? Was it rifted away or something? - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Cockshot Wood and Castle Head are both just south of Keswick. They're olivine-dolerite outgroups, and I presume that they're bosses, rather than dykes or sills.
 * Rockall did indeed rift away from Britain - the spreading centre used to lie between Britain and Rockall, but switched to between Rockall and Greenland. The British Tertiary Volcanic Province is, I believe, associated with the formation of that spreading centre. If I recall correctly, there's another volcanic complex on Porcupine Bank as well. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, removed Sanday and Canna. But do we need to remove Staffa?  Even if it isn't a volcano in its own right, its basalt columns are rather famous. - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll leave you to negotiate the semantics of the category with the project, but, unless the article is clear about the nature of the volcanic features of Staffa, including it in the category is liable to mislead. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * For Staffa, I think would be much more appropriate than . Another alternative could be, if and when we get around to creating that category, as there might be just enough about local volcanism in the article (rather than about the volcanic rocks themselves) to justify this. I'm not sure if it's a central enough concept to this article's topic though. -- Avenue (talk) 03:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with much of what Pyrope says. We should only be applying volcano categories to articles about volcanic landforms where the vent (or some remnant of it) is still identifiable. Eroded pipes and plugs, okay, but not distant lava flows. Regions where the vents are less clearly identifiable (e.g. the Columbia River Plateau) are probably better categorised under volcanism or volcanic landforms. -- Avenue (talk) 04:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with Columbia River Plateau. We know there was a vent, but just not where it was.  It's there, somewhere, under all that lava.  We categorize the whole plateau under volcanoes as it's one giant volcanic landform, in the same way stratovolcanoes are a vent and their landform.  The only difference here is we don't know exactly where the vent is, but we still know it's there. - Gilgamesh (talk) 09:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I agree there were volcanoes on and under the Columbia River Plateau. I would even appreciate an academic argument that LIPs should be included in the definition of volcano - I enjoyed reading one geologist's suggestion that much of New Zealand's North Island could be considered a single volcano, for instance, because it's covered by overlapping ignimbrites and ash deposits from vents in the Taupo volcanic zone. But I don't agree that it's sensible for Wikipedia to categorise the Columbia River Plateau (or the North Island) as a volcano, as this stretches the meaning of the word too far to be useful to our audience. Indicate it's volcanic, yes; claim it's a volcano, no. -- Avenue (talk) 12:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Large igneous provinces are a bit more complex, because they are massive flood basalts. They may not build up all at once, but they do build up a lot of volume in copious gushes in single events, more so than ordinary volcanoes.  Just look at Eldgja and Laki, the only flood basalts to have formed in recorded history.  However, New Zealand's North Island is far more complex and varied than this.  It has multiple individual volcanoes in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, the hotspot volcanism that created Mount Taranaki/Egmont, the monogenetic volcanic field that created Auckland, etc., and these centers erupt different kinds of lavas?  They could probably be associated with each other by virtue of being near the same subduction zone, but it would seem like a stretch to call them all one of the same volcano.  It really depends on the nature of the volcano&mdash;before Krakatoa's big historic eruption, they assumed the island was three or so volcanoes clustered together, then realized it was one massive volcano.  And with Mauna Loa, in the past, they used to consider Kīlauea a flank vent of Mauna Loa, but now Kīlauea is understood to be a volcano in its own right.  And take Rabaul Caldera, which has multiple historically active vents (such as Tavurvur and Vulcan), but is actually one giant caldera volcano.  Now, since large igneous provinces are so massive, so copious and so spontaneous, I would be very very hard-pressed to say it is not one enormous volcanic complex. - Gilgamesh (talk) 13:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm arguing that if you want to categorise basaltic LIP landforms (e.g. Ontong Java Plateau, Deccan Traps) as volcanoes, it's hard to see why you wouldn't treat silicic LIP landforms the same way. Yes, the North Island's volcanism is diverse, but the fact is that tephra from the TVZ covers much of the island (including Auckland, for example) and so you could see much of the island (or at least the North Island Volcanic Plateau) as one big volcanic landform, centred around vents in the TVZ (several of which are indistinct, having been buried by later ones). I believe this interpretation is not appropriate for categorising articles, and we should follow the common meaning of volcano more closely than this. -- Avenue (talk) 14:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, was the entire island built up by this tephra? What you seem to be describing is pyroclastic ashfall.  Sometimes it can voluminous and deep (such as during Yellowstone hotspot eruptions), but the whole island up from Zealandia's craton?  Because that's exactly what flood basalts do&mdash;they build thick and deep and create an entire plateau of vertical meters of lava, sometimes even tens or hundreds of meters thick.  So are we talking about tephra on that scale, or merely a relative dusting of a meter or two to the top of the strata? - Gilgamesh (talk) 15:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not claiming you'd have to say the entire island is one volcano: "much of the island" means just that. I believe most of the Volcanic Plateau is covered by over 100 metres of tephra, and it is kilometres deep in many parts. Not that different in scale from an LIP's flood basalts. -- Avenue (talk) 17:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Anyway, whether it's one or more volcanoes, I don't think it matters. As I said before, the categorization mechanism doesn't necessarily work where each individual entry is equal to one count of the category's topic.  So, regardless of whether or not a LIP is one or more different volcanoes, more than one are still volcanoes (plural), and it's really always been my understanding that members of "Members of" categories are individually equal to "one member of" or "multiple members of".  Both volcanoes and volcanic groups are in "Volcanoes of" categories, and this seems by far the most intuitive approach to me.  Volcanoes can still have a lot of secrets in them, and forcing different categories by one- or more-than-one volcano seems too arbitrary and counterintuitive (and potentially/partially unverifiable) to me. - Gilgamesh (talk) 15:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point in itself. I certainly don't object to active volcanic fields containing lots of obvious volcanoes going into "volcanoes of" categories, although this is partly because the corresponding "volcanic fields of" categories would not be well populated, so (despite them being a better fit for some articles) we shouldn't create them. The problem lies in extending this approach to all sorts of other volcanic areas or deposits, including ones where we can't identify any volcanoes. Then it doesn't seem appropriate. -- Avenue (talk) 17:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * But you see, we can identify volcanoes. Just not by exact position of vent or by number of volcanoes.  You simply cannot have such a massive flood basalt without a volcano intimately involved.  Also, it's liquid, so it tends to flood and pool and pile up in a fairly contiguous manner.  Ashfall, on the other hand, can travel far and wide in the air before settling.  The basalt flood structure tends to stay mostly in one colossal contiguous blob, while the extent of ashfall is limited only by the power of the atmosphere to carry it.  I think this is an intuitive issue&mdash;it's easy to see how what a ginormous cumulative flood basalt leaves behind is reminiscent of what a shield volcano or a rift fissure or a stratovolcano leaves behind&mdash;cumulative deposits that are continually built on until it gets huge.  And as far as I know, there are no shields, cones or flood basalts that support themselves entirely on cold air.  If a rock or ash deposit is blown far away, it's a deposit.  But if it builds continually on existing deposits contiguous with the source, it's building a structure.  Since LIPs erupt in such large and hellish events, it's a very big volcanic structure, but still remains one.  And with something as big and fluid as that, you don't necessarily expect it be in some neat limited shield or cone that occupies limited space.  A flood basalt is going to occupy all the space it can, gravity permitting, and will continue to fill whatever space it hasn't been able to yet until the event ceases.  When you're at the foothill of a lofty stratovolcano, you're still at the volcano, as it can erupt from just about anywhere&mdash;the summit, the flanks, even the base.  It is entirely easy to think of the massive blobs of traprock at the Siberian Traps or the Deccan Traps as at least one massive volcanic structure as well.  When it's just a lava flow that has gone far but thin, far from the vent you know it's just a lava flow.  But when that lava is everywhere because it piled up everywhere, well...there's a reason we call them massifs.  Am I making sense? - Gilgamesh (talk) 17:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand what you're saying, I just don't agree with the conclusions you draw. Yes, the TVZ "builds continually on existing deposits contiguous with the source" to form the North Island Volcanic Plateau (except perhaps for "continually", but that's true for most volcanoes). Since you identify "volcanic structure" with "volcano", by your arguments, it is a volcano. But it does not fit the common definition of a volcano, nor would most geologists describe it as such. Even you seem to have trouble accepting it as a volcano. Do you see that your classification of LIPs as volcanoes (and especially various volcanic landforms within the LIPs) raises similar hackles for other people? We should not follow our personal definitions here, but should be guided by professional and common usage. I don't believe your approach meets this criterion. -- Avenue (talk) 04:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not agree volcano categories should be added to volcanic belts and greenstone belts because those two features are not volcanoes. They may contain volcanoes, yes, but they are not volcanoes per se. Some belts are just volcanic formations with no volcanoes that formed from old island arc collisions. Thus I do not see the purpose of having volcano categories added to volcanic and greenstone belts. Black Tusk (talk) 05:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You're missing the point. Volcanic belts and greenstone belts are groups of volcanoes, and it's not required for each individual member of a category to be singular.  It would be very counterintuitive to me to exclude members from categories simply because they are more-than-one.  More than one volcano is still volcanoes, so when we speak of volcanoes of in regards to these belts, it's still applicable.  Besides, it seems rather absurd to think of such significant volcanic remains as somehow being volcano-less.  They were created by volcanoes, even if we can't find them.  In lieu of finding vents, we still know they existed.  Even a theoretical volcano of 100% certainty is still a volcano, albeit an extinct remnant of one.  You yourself said that even volcanoes billions of years old are still volcanoes, even if the vents, magma chambers and even their associated zones of crustal weakness have grown forever cold and dead. - Gilgamesh (talk) 11:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Volcanic rock is not volcanoes. Black Tusk (talk) 14:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

So why did you suggest Mackenzie dike swarm to begin with? When a volcano goes extinct, there's nothing left but the rock, because the vent is dead. It's extinct. Greenstone belts and large igneous provinces are volcanic rock, but they don't necessarily exist out of thin air. A volcano erupted them, and not on the opposite corner of the planet either. They accumulated there because they were at or near the vent, even if we can't find the vent anymore. I thought we were supposed to be cataloguing volcanic activity. Volcanoes aren't merely the vents we can find&mdash;they are also the vents we know exist, whether or not we can find them. It's part of the spirit of this project as I understand it. If we're going to split hairs on the term "volcano" like this, then maybe we should go with my previous suggestion&mdash;that all the "Volcanoes of" categories be renamed to "Volcanism of" categories. Because very honestly, I feel like pulling my hair out over these murky and extremely counterintuitive semantics. - Gilgamesh (talk) 15:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Whatever. I'm not arguing and I never said the Mackenzie dike swarm is or wasn't a volcano or volcanoes. The dikes of the swarm are most likely vents of volcanoes and the massive flood basalts. Black Tusk (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

"Volcanism in " or "Volcanism of "?
The above discussion has become extensive enough that I'm having trouble keeping track of all the various issues. So I'm splitting off one of the simpler questions: should the subcategories of be called "Volcanism in " or "Volcanism of "? Currently they are all titled "Volcanism in ".

As I said earlier, I prefer "Volcanism of ". Gilgamesh does too. Does anyone else support or object to this? Unless someone objects in the next two days, I'll propose speedy renaming them at WP:CFD. -- Avenue (talk) 23:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I support "Volcanism of ". Black Tusk (talk) 23:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

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Rename "Volcanoes of" categories to "Volcanism of" instead
I've been on Wikipedia since the early half of this decade, but I've never organized a vote. So this is something of an informal vote. Reasons as per the discussions above: to be able to include flood basalts and greenstone belts in the categories, or other obvious volcanic events where the vent cannot be identified. This would include the 100% certainty that volcanic vents and/or associated contiguous volcanic provinces occurred in the region of the category. For instance, the Deccan Traps occurred in India, and would be in "Volcanism of India". - Gilgamesh (talk) 10:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Rename. - Gilgamesh (talk) 10:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Rename per above discussion. Vsmith (talk) 10:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose in general, but rename specific cases like Scotland, Denmark, etc per Lavateraguy's comment below . We already have some "Volcanism of " categories (in addition to the corresponding "Volcanoes of ..." category). I thought they were overkill initially, but now I think they provide a useful distinction between volcanoes in particular and volcanism in general. Rather than renaming, let's create additional "Volcanism of " categories as needed, or perhaps "Volcanism of " if this would lead to over-categorisation. -- Avenue (talk) 11:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * For instance, the sorts of things that would go in a "volcanism" category but not a "volcanoes" one would include eruptions, volcanic areas, and hotspots. -- Avenue (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hotspots maybe... - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why would hotspots go into a "volcanoes" category? They are not volcanoes. A hotspot trail, yes, but not the hotspot itself. -- Avenue (talk) 15:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I meant hotspots maybe wouldn't go in. They're not always currently producing volcanism.  Like the hypothesized hotspot currently uplifting (but not breaking through) the Adirondack Mountains in New York. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. -- Avenue (talk) 05:35, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The "Volcanism of " categories already exist and the "Volcanoes of " categories are subcategories of that particular category. And they cover different but related subjects. Black Tusk (talk) 17:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
This poll may be in the wrong place. Formal discussions about moving categories usually take place at Categories for discussion, and they have the infrastructure in place to change the categories on thousands of articles, if that's what's decided. Should we move it there, or keep it going here as just an informal, non-binding poll to canvass views among members of our project? -- Avenue (talk) 11:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * For now I think I'd like something informal and non-binding. To be honest, I didn't even know we already had "Volcanism of" categories.  If those already exist, I wouldn't mind merging the "Volcanoes of" categories with them, but I'd rather only do such a thing without too much opposition. - Gilgamesh (talk) 13:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * See Category:Volcanism by country. They only date back to March 2009. -- Avenue (talk) 16:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I noticed Black Tusk removing volcano categories from articles (such as North Mountain (Nova Scotia) that are volcanic in origin but are not formally "volcanoes" as per the discussion. Whether or not that may be, it just seems...inappropriate to put modern volcanoes and very old significantly volcanic provinces in different places so that it's hard to find each other.  Articles like Deccan Traps and Barren Island (Andaman Islands) should at least have parent categories in common that highlight both their location (India) and their nature (volcanic), even if Deccan Traps is not formally a volcano as per the narrower definition.  It's hard to associate it as anything less than impressively volcanic. - Gilgamesh (talk) 14:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Part of this issue is somewhat due to the lack of articles about ancient volcanoes. Like I said before, too many users pay attention to modern volcanoes that will or might erupt again and ignore the ancient volcanics. Most of the modern volcano articles only go back to the Pleistocene and Holocene. Thankfully, there is at least one user on Wikipedia that cares for both young and ancient volcanics. And that would be me. Oh just to let some of you modern-day volcanologists is I still have to take some pictures of weathered Precambrian pillow lava in my area, and maybe some dikes as well. Black Tusk (talk) 23:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * North Mountain (Nova Scotia) is still in Category:Volcanic areas of Canada, which is a subcategory of Category:Volcanism in Canada - where it would have ended up under the proposed merge. I don't see a problem here. (Except "Volcanic areas" seems a bit too broad-brush.) -- Avenue (talk) 16:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, alright. But what of the problem of users who would expect things like this to be in "volcanoes"?  The practical distinction between "volcanism" and "volcanoes" still seems an intuitively murky one.  We've been demonstrating that a lot in these drawn-out discussions.  I've been studying volcanology most of my life, and if I had a problem distinguishing the categorical relevance of differentiating "volcanoes of" from "volcanism of" (and if you check their histories, you'll find I created probably most the "volcanoes of" categories in the first place several years ago because Category:Volcanoes had grown hopelessly cluttered), it seems to reason that it is at least probable that a lot of people are going to find this confusing and counterintuitive, not to mention hair-pulling.  Even now, I'm still not clear what the difference between a volcano and a flood basalt event is, if there is indeed one at all (they both erupted lava and/or tephra from a vent).  "Volcanism" is far easier to intuit. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I just had another thought. Monogenetic volcanoes are defined only by their single one-time-only eruption. Is that a volcano or a volcanic event? Does there have to be a passage of time before it's not considered a volcano? A certain size? A certain shape? It seems murky. Parícutin in Mexico is thought of as a volcano, but it was monogenetic in nature, and will not erupt again. So are the individual vents of Auckland volcanic field. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not really that complicated. If you can find a reliable source saying it's a volcano (or some synonym or subtype), it can go into a "volcanoes" category. If there's evidence of volcanism only, stick to "volcanism". Categories should reflect the article's text, which should reflect what reliable sources have said about the topic.
 * I have trouble seeing much reason for confusion with recent volcanic fields. Most of the vents are readily identifiable as such, and the ones that aren't are unlikely to have their own article. Are you suggesting only active volcanoes would go in a "volcanoes" category, or that volcanoes have attain some minimum size to qualify? If so, I think you're the first. -- Avenue (talk) 23:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not talking about whether I think size qualifies. I'm saying...I don't know what qualifies.  The distinction seems insignificantly hypertechnical to the point of sheer counterintuition.  What's so wrong with having volcanism and volcanoes in the same category?  It makes things much simpler and less confusing. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The distinction did take me a while to appreciate, so I can see that you might find it a wrench. Perhaps it's easiest to make progress by focussing on examples. Take Staffa, say - an island made of volcanic rock formations, including some wonderful basalt columns, but our article gives no indication that any vents (or related underlying features such as pipes) are located on the island. I think we're agreed that this should not be put directly into a "volcanoes" category, and that "volcanism" is much more appropriate. It is also useful to distinguish this island from clear volcanoes like Rangitoto. This does not seem "hypertechnical" to me. But there isn't a perfectly sharp boundary between things that can reasonably be described as volcanoes and those that can't. We just need to define some sensible boundaries. -- Avenue (talk) 15:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So, shall we start making new "Volcanism of" categories for these cases? And if we have only volcanoes, we can put those "Volcanoes of" categories directly in "Volcanism by country"?  Also, it seems now like paleovolcanic categories should have been named "Holocene volcanism", "Pleistocene volcanism", etc., especially since categories like "Archean volcanoes" tend not to have actual volcanoes left. - Gilgamesh (talk) 18:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In the case of Great Britain perhaps a rename as proposed would be for the best. There are no active volcanoes in the islands, and much of past products of volcanism has subsequently been processed in collisional orogenies. Even where identifiable volcanoes survive (e.g. Mull, Arthur's Seat) they've been eroded down to the roots. Ditto Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, ... Lavateraguy (talk) 18:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds fair. And I think volcano categories in larger regions (continents, oceans, etc.) can also be collapsed into "volcanism of" categories. - Gilgamesh (talk) 19:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, actually volcanic plugs are probably still volcanoes. They aren't merely erosional remnants&mdash;they're the remnants of vents themselves, are they not?  Rock that was under enough pressure to cool into rock much harder than any of their surroundings.  I mean, they're called "volcanic plugs" or "volcanic necks" because they're associated with the remains of vents, aren't they? - Gilgamesh (talk) 19:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * We already have categories like for many of those, though, and I don't think the corresponding "Volcanoes of Scotland" category would be needed just to hold that as a subcategory. I agree with Lavateraguy that we could rename quite a few country categories without difficulty, although this shouldn't preclude recreating the corresponding "volcanoes of" categories if they turn out to be needed later. -- Avenue (talk) 02:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that we can always be sure that a plug is an actual vent, and not the remains of a blob of magma that never reached the surface.
 * One reason for restricting volcano to relatively pristine structures, apart from the difficulties in drawing lines, is that calling a feature a volcano leads the general public to misinterpret structures - I recently removed a claim that Slieve Gullion has a crater lake, and people have made the same error in respect of Red Tarn on Helvellyn. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Most of the "Volcanism in " categories have articles for them (e.g. Volcanism in New Zealand, Volcanism in Canada, Volcanism in Iceland, Volcanism in Chile), which why they were probably created in the first place. I am not saying the "Volcanism in " categories should have an article about volcanism in every country like New Zealand, Canada, Iceland and Chile, but it would be necessary because if other countries get "Volcanism in " articles, it would not exactly fit in the "Volcanoes of " category because "Volcanism in " articles could also include other magmatic formations such as dikes, dike swarms, batholiths and sills, which are not volcanoes. They are intrusions. There is at least six actual volcanoes in Category:Archean volcanoes. Black Tusk (talk) 19:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I'm still not sure I understand all the distinctions, but my idea now is this&mdash;places and time periods that have only volcanism articles can have "Volcanism of" categories. Places that only (thus far) have articles for actual volcano articles can have "Volcanoes of" categories. Where there are only "Volcanoes of" categories, they can go in categories for both "Volcanism by" and "Volcanoes by", etc. "Volcanism by" and "Volcanism of" should be the primary parent categories, with "Volcanoes by" and "Volcanoes of" categories should be subcategories of them. Where there are only "Volcanism of" without corresponding "Volcanoes of", "Volcanism of" would go only in "Volcanism by" parent categories, and not in "Volcanoes by" parent categories. Am I getting this so far? Also, I think it would be a good idea now to rename all the "Volcanoes by geochronology" categories to "Volcanism by geochronology", especially because, while there are some true "volcanoes" even as far back as the Archean, "volcanism" in general seems more relevant to the study of such old and eroding volcanic features and the majority will probably not be considered "volcanoes" formally. Am I right? - Gilgamesh (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds sensible to me. One minor point: so far we have "Volcanism in " categories, not "Volcanism of ". I don't have strong feelings about which is best, but we should be consistent. And one more important point: maybe I'm reading too much into your use of the word "now", but I believe this sort of thing will go a lot smoother if we do our homework before attempting to make big changes. If there are many grey areas within a category, careful consideration (and probably discussion here) would be worthwhile before taking things forward to WP:CFD. -- Avenue (talk) 16:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, to play it safe, "volcanism" encompasses "volcanoes", but the reverse isn't true. So if in doubt, put it in "Volcanism of/in" categories. - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should use "Volcanism of" instead of "Volcanism in". Countries can have all sorts of scattered territories and exclaves. And the location of volcanic features associated with volcanism isn't necessarily inherently a different concept from the location of volcanoes. No? Anyway, I think we need a robust network of "Volcanism of" parent categories. Should we start creating those? Especially for places that have both "volcanism" and "volcanoes". - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC) I'm serious about this. "Volcanism of" or "Volcanism in"? Personally I'd create new categories with "Volcanism of", just to match up with all the "Volcanoes of" categories that already exist by the same naming convention. But I'd rather this be agreed on. - Gilgamesh (talk) 04:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I prefer "Volcanism of ", but I'm happy with either. We should try to avoid overcategorisation too. Countries that only have volcanism-related articles won't need the corresponding volcanoes category (and vice versa), so we should try to identify and agree on those. -- Avenue (talk) 04:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a given. Only have both categories if a place has both. - Gilgamesh (talk) 04:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I've proposed renaming to  (and likewise all its subcategories) here. Gilgamesh started to do this, but I think it needs to go through the usual CFD process to avoid cut-and-paste GFDL problems. Feel free to weigh in. -- Avenue (talk) 04:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright, this WikiProject is nothing but a complete fuck up now. Volcanism is the processes involved in the formation of volcanoes, and in the transfer of magma and volatile material from the interior of the Earth to its surface. Volcanoes are a naturally occurring opening in the surface of the Earth through which molten, gaseous, and solid material is ejected. There is a difference in the two terms. A volcano is not volcanism, nor is volcanism a volcano.....Whatever these categories turn out to be I will not tolerate it. Black Tusk (talk) 05:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with your definitions, but I don't understand what exactly you're objecting to here. Are you saying that "volcanoes" categories should not be subcategories of "volcanism" ones? My initial reaction to that argument is that it seems to ignore the fact that our articles often cover both the volcano (the vent and the volcanic landform it produced) and the associated volcanism (e.g. eruptions, source of magma, etc). Or do you simply object to renaming the geochronology categories? If it's the latter, is that because you think we still need the " volcanoes" categories? -- Avenue (talk) 07:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What my issue is the fact that volcano articles now have volcanism categories insted of proper volcano categories. When the era and period categories were created they were called " volcanoes" insted of " volcanism". With these " volcanism" categories on every volcano article they contain it makes it look as if the volcano is volcanism insted of an actual volcano. Like I said, a volcano is not volcanism, it is a volcanic landform and it should be categorized as such. Volcanism is also an active process, and not all volcanoes are active. I am so mixed up now I don't know what to say..... Black Tusk (talk) 00:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The issue is overcategorization and having too many categories to maintain. I was kinda advised against doing that.  So if "volcanoes" categories are going to be subcategories of "volcanism" categories, then if the "volcanoes" category has too few members, it's going to be redundant and folded into its parent category anyway.  And from one of the comments on the CfR linked to above, I'm already getting the impression that some people don't really take the notion of calling any of these something besides "volcanoes" too seriously, as it was commented that "volcano" is a household term while "volcanism" is not.  I feel like we're already pushing our practical luck just by having any separate "volcanism" and "volcanoes" categories for the same contexts.  But it's not like we can completely ignore volcanism by country at times when it's such a huge feature, like with the Deccan Traps.  I'm saying, in places where either "volcanism" or "volcanoes" can not afford a category of its own and one of them has to go, then it would have to be "volcanoes" because "volcanism" is a broader concept while "volcanoes" is (apparently) narrower and more exclusive.  And there's still the pesky issue of overspreading categories&mdash;distinctions that will very often seem counterintuitive and hypertechnical and making the category system harder to use because of that. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My goodness&mdash;language and tone! o.o - Gilgamesh (talk) 12:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This current disagreement and lack of consensus has effectively paralyzed a great deal of work in this project. And already, my mind feels the wear and fatigue of this schizophrenic state of things we've carved out. Sometimes, for some people, (as was said before) life is too short to spend so much work and reading on something. But for some people, life is too short to wait around and do no useful work while no one seems to completely agree and/or understand each other over semantics. My mind is mush for now. Please, sort this out. If not, we could very well find ourselves inducted in Lamest edit wars. We can't expect entire projects to freeze to a halt every other day over confusing semantic debates and disagreements. When did this stop feeling like useful collaboration and start feeling like the most tedious of bureaucracies? I'll be in a self-imposed vegetative state for a little while. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I have found actual volcanoes (not just volcanic remnants) in England and Scotland. The Scafells in England and Glen Coe in Scotland were each VEI-8 supervolcanoes in their own right. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice find. I think the above discussion could do with a summary; I'll try to get onto that this weekend. I think we should be able to make progress, at least in understanding each other better, if we focus on a few specific examples. -- Avenue (talk) 01:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

grunt work
Done some grunt work on promoting some volcanism-classified articles to volcanoes categories, and demoting some volcanoes-classified articles to volcanism categories. Brain just collapsed to mush a few minutes ago. Stopped for now. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm still unsure how to apply a lot of these categories. It's still counterintuitive to split categories dealing with volcanism from categories dealing with volcanoes. For instance, volcanic groups&mdash;if they contain actual volcanoes an other non-volcano volcanic features, should they be classified under volcanism or volcanoes? And does it make a difference if the item being classified is an article of a category (containing volcanoes)? I feel like I'm putting artificial barriers between two topics that seem far too much like the same animal, no matter how many times you try to explain the distinction. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Making new articles part of WikiProject Volcanoes
How do you make an article a part of WikiProject Volcanoes? Do you have to ask someone or can you just go ahead and do it yourself? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 18:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Go ahead. Just put a volcano tag on its talk page, preferably with class= and importance= parameters filled in (see WP:VOLC), and add it to the relevant volcano-related categories. If you're in doubt about whether it fits within the project's scope, feel free to ask. -- Avenue (talk) 19:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ask who? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (talk) 04:05, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This project's talk page or one of its active members. - Gilgamesh (talk) 16:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Eldfell at FAR
Sorry to do this, but I thought as this project looked to have some activity at the moment then this might be straightforward to fix the references. I have none. Have nominated for review here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

PS: sinking now - Featured_article_review/Eldfell/archive1 - can anyone help with sourcing? Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Permian volcano?
We all know there were volcanoes in the Permian. The entire Permian didn't begin and end without a volcano, that's absurd. However, another editor recently deleted Category:Permian volcanoes for being empty. There are entries in Category:Permian volcanism, which are mostly large igneous provinces, but I don't know of a single specific remnant of an actual formal volcano from the Permian. Practically anything would do&mdash;a caldera, a volcanic plug, whatever (and not a dike, sill or flood basalt), as long as it's what's left of a genuine volcano form. Do we know of one we could anchor to Category:Permian volcanoes? My issue here is smooth category navigation, where Category:Carboniferous volcanoes are followed by this and Category:Triassic volcanoes are proceeded by this. - Gilgamesh (talk) 01:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Vog needs attention
It seems very unlikely that vog is only found in the Hawaiian Islands and nowhere else on earth. I've added to the article, and it needs to be expanded to describe similar occurrences of vog (or volcanic smog) elsewhere in the world. - Gilgamesh (talk) 05:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Extraterrestrial volcanoes
Shouldn't there be an Category:Extraterrestrial shield volcanoes (etc) ? I noticed that some ET shield volcanoes are classified in the Category:Shield volcanoes, while many are not... 76.66.196.139 (talk) 12:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If there are more than a handful, absolutely, it would be a good subcategory of "shield volcanoes". I'm no planetary expert though, so you or someone else will have to get it started. Awickert (talk) 17:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Some volcano articles might have Category:Shield volcanoes because the subject may include shield volcanoes (e.g. volcanic fields) or they have a shield volcano history. BT (talk) 04:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Memorial effort
As many of you might have seen in the Wikipedia Signpost, User:Fg2, who had been a significant contributor to much of our content related to Japan, has recently died. Some of us have decided to try to work to improve an article relative to his interests as a memorial to him, and the article chosen is Mount Fuji. This is also an article considered of "Top" importance by your project. I and I believe the rest of the people involved in the effort to improve this article in honor of Fg2 would more than welcome any input from members of this project. Thank you for your attention. John Carter (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province
Just did a massive expand and rewrite for this article earlier. BT (talk) 00:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Golan_Heights#RfC:_Mountain_names
You are invited to join the discussion at. nsaum75 ¡שיחת! 20:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC) (Using )

Category:Subduction volcanoes
Shouldn't Category:Subduction volcanoes be renamed? There's no subduction volcano article and I suppose the intended meaning is simply "volcano occurring over a subduction zone", in which case Category:Volcanoes over subduction zones would seem a more appropriate name. At the very least, the category should include a couple of sentences to clarify its scope, especially for non-expert readers. Pichpich (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Rename would be nice, yes.
 * This category is ment to be for volcanoes that have formed by subduction, not just volcanoes over subduction zones. Plus, there are ancient subduction volcanoes that are no longer at subduction zones. Renaming the category as "Volcanoes over subduction zones" is unnecessary. BT (talk) 23:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Infobox mountain changes
Since this project uses Infobox mountain I just wanted to let everyone know here (in case they do not watch WikiProject Mountains talk page) is that the infobox is being tested with a new layout based on a more common code base. Please see Infobox mountain code updates for further information. The switchover to the layout will probably occur soon as long as all the known issues have been worked out. Thanks. RedWolf (talk) 21:18, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

DYKs
Just to put it in perspective, here's a list of all volcano-related DYKs!


 * ...that the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington was the first major volcanic eruption to occur in the U.S. since the 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California?
 * ...that the evolution of Hawaiian volcanoes ends with the Guyot Stage, and that most, if not all, the volcanoes west of Kure Atoll are guyots?
 * ...that the Irazú Volcano in Costa Rica erupted violently in 1963, on the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy arrived in the country for a state visit?
 * ...that Ferdinandea was a volcanic island near Sicily which was claimed by four countries when it appeared in 1831, but was destroyed by erosion less than a year later?
 * ...that the Iceland hotspot is partly responsible for the frequent volcanic eruptions and geothermal activity experienced in Iceland?
 * ...that the only active volcano in South Asia is on Barren Island, one of India's Andaman Islands?
 * ...that Imbabura is an inactive stratovolcano in northern Ecuador which is revered in local folklore as a protective parent?
 * ..that one submarine volcano located in Banda Sea of Indonesia is called the Emperor of China?
 * ...that Regal Mountain (pictured), an eroded stratovolcano in the Wrangell Mountains, is the third-highest thirteener (a peak between 13,000 and 13,999 feet in elevation) in Alaska?
 * ...that Canadian scientist Bill Mathews was a pioneer in the study of subglacial eruptions and volcano-ice interactions in North America?
 * ...that thermal vent ecosystems have been discovered in the Aegean Sea, in the caldera of Kolumbo underwater volcano?
 * ...that Hawaii's Chain of Craters Road has been blocked repeatedly by lava flows from Kīlauea volcano (pictured) since it was built in 1928?
 * ...that Halemaumau crater (pictured) in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park erupted explosively on March 19 2008 for the first time since 1924?
 * ... that Bowie Seamount on the British Columbia Coast of Canada is one of the most biologically rich submarine volcanoes on Earth and was an active volcanic island throughout the last glacial period?
 * ... that the early pre-Columbian site of Xochitecatl in Mexico was abandoned for centuries after the Popocatepetl volcano erupted around 150 AD?
 * ... that although the summit of underwater volcano Loihi is 969 metres (3,180 ft) below sea level, it is still twice as tall, measured from the base of its southern flank, as Mount St. Helens ever was?
 * ... that a sub-marine eruption near the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano in Tonga began spewing steam, smoke, pumice, and ash thousands of feet into the sky on March 16, 2009?
 * ... that the Galápagos hotspot, located in the east Pacific Ocean, is responsible for the creation of the Galápagos Islands?
 * ... that Cross Seamount, a landform arising from the ocean floor southwest of Hawaii, is used by the NOAA to study tuna migratory patterns?
 * ... that Detroit Seamount, an underwater volcano in the North Pacific, is as big as the island of Hawaii?
 * ... that Koko Guyot, an underwater volcano in the Hawaiian volcanic chain, was named for the 58th emperor of Japan, Emperor Koko?
 * ... that the discovery of a population of Aleutian Cackling Geese on Buldir Volcano in the Aleutian Islands prevented their extinction?
 * ... that the 1929 eruption of the Gareloi Volcano created a fissure running down the mountain's southern summit?
 * ... that Nintoku Seamount, an underwater volcano in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, is over 56.2 million years old?
 * ... that volcanoes in the Puyehue Volcano complex may have produced some of the most primitive magmas in the Andes?
 * ... that Pilot Rock is one of the oldest volcanic formations in the Cascade Range?
 * ... that one of a series of hotels called the Volcano House, built at the edge of Kilauea volcano since 1846, burned to the ground from a kitchen fire?
 * ... that the eruption of Amak Volcano in about 2550 BCE was confirmed by tephrochronology?
 * ... that the Bobrof Volcano is an uninhabited island in the Andreanof Islands, part of Alaska's Aleutian archipelago?
 * ... that the closest transportation to Davidof Volcano is 199 mi away in Adak, Alaska?
 * ... that some of the thrust horses in Montana's Adel Mountains Volcanic Field fold some of the intrusions, while others are cut by them?
 * ... that the volcanic chain (pictured) responsible for creating the island of Hawaii extends all the way to the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, at the border of Russia?
 * ... that although no eruptions from the Segula Volcano have been recorded, there are lava flows on it which may only be a few hundred years old?

I'll use it for the Portal. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 14:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

When can a volcano be considered erupting?
We have a minor conflict in the Mayon Volcano talk page (particularly here up to here) (yes, the two sections have the same name).

I and WtMitchell say that the 'Last eruption' field in the Mayon infobox should have references that show that it is erupting at the moment, since the Philippine volcano alert level system does not have a definite level when the volcano is considered to be erupting; it only has level 5 for 'hazardous eruption'. On the other hand, Gubernatoria insists that no such references are needed and the state on which the volcano is in can be determined with common sense and a dictionary, and this information should be from the volcano itself and not what the country's geology agency claims.

I would like to request a clarification on this matter please, and if possible an opinion on what should be done next since Gubernatoria also plants to submit the article to a GA review. --112.203.95.233 (talk) 16:20, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The article looks developed enough to be nominated at GAN. As for the references in the infobox, it makes more sense to have them then not. Best,  ceran  thor 13:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Class 4 is eruption eminent. If a volcano emitting gas is considered erupting, then a couple of dozen volcanoes would be considering erupting atm. Once it is level 5 then it is erupting (btw, this is selected news at Portal:Volcanoes). As for a GAN nomination, it's not stable enough cuase of the current activity. Also, the prose could use some work; some of it seems more like an event log then an encyclopedic article. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 17:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * We were discussing the eruption criteria in the talk page, as well as the part about the prose which was also mentioned in the Tambayan Philippines assessment, but Gubernatoria is very insistent on his stand. Rather than pushing further we just let him do what he wants and let him take responsibility for his edits, since after all it is his desire to turn Mayon into a GA-class article. --112.203.95.233 (talk) 07:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

As of this writing, Gubernatoria wants to cite the Mayon talk page itself in the article. I had to remove it since it's a self-reference, but he keeps putting it back and has threatened to report me for it. Since I don't want to go into an edit war with him (Gubernatoria seems to exhibit that behavior and has breached 3RR in a half hour) I implore you for an intervention in the article. --112.203.95.233 (talk) 16:24, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Category work
I've been running through Category:Unassessed WikiProject Volcanoes articles. Cleared about half of it, some help would be appreciated. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 17:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's grown even more than the last time I cleared it? Ok, I'll help. :)  ceran  thor 17:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 21:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, all is done. The entire list is cleared after another push from me, great work Cer =) <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 00:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Potential FPOC
Our Portal is up for Peer review here. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 03:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Volcanism article created
I was surprised this remained as a redirect to the volcano article as its first edit on September 6, 2002. This is completely unnesessary since volcanism is not just included with volcanic eruptions of volcanoes. It is the process that places from the mantle of a planet and rises within the crust of a planet as a volcanic eruption. But volcanism also does not always reach the surface. The rising magma can cool and solidify within the crust of a planet to form intrusive features such as batholiths, dikes and sills. I wonder what else I can find that does not need to be as a redirect..... BT (talk) 22:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, I'm surprised too. - Gilgamesh (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 04:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Reorganization
This project is among the worst in Wikipedia in terms of organization, participation, and documentation. To shame. We've got a barebones crew of active editors doing all the work, with a large bank of just-joined-did-nothing editors. I'm proposing, nay, doing, a restructuring of the project. The results so far are based at User:Resident Mario/sandbox. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 18:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Done and transfered. I'm filling out the redlinks. Step 2 will be a purge of inactive users. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 04:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm.....how are you going to figue out who is active or inactive? BT (talk) 06:08, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Edits within 4 months. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 14:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but just because they have edited within 4 months dosen't mean they are active with this WP. For example, a user might have edited Wikipedia within 4 months but may have not edited volcano articles for over 4 months. BT (talk) 00:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * But where will the list of members be now? --The High Fin Sperm Whale (Talk • Contribs) 19:37, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Could be better to move inactive folks to a second list than to delete them entirely. What if they decide to come back? Awickert (talk) 19:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I still have this on my watchlist. I don't count myself inactive, though I may be sparse a lot of the time. - Gilgamesh (talk) 20:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's all been moved to WikiProject Volcanoes/Members. Turns out that only about 1/2 of the members are still active. If they decide to return, they can very easily edit into the page and add themselves back to the main list. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 21:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * To BT: I know, I know, but when you try and kick vandal hunters or whatever froma project they get pissed and then wikidrama sets on and ugh...not doing it. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b style="color:black;">Res</b> Mar 01:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, is there a to-do list or a page of requested articles on this WikiProject? --The High Fin Sperm Whale 20:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)