Talk:Intermontane Belt

Geographic/geologic hierarchy

This is aimed at User:Black Tusk but others may wish to take it up; the Intermontane Belt is one of hte main Physiographic regions of British Columbia as laid out in Holland's index/map; as I recall it's everythign between the Rockies and Coast Mountiains; not sure if it includes the Columbia Mtns but i think it includes the Interior Mountains and the Yukon Basin and associated plateaus. I'll try and find the map again.Skookum1 (talk) 18:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. There's a map showing all the BC physiography regions here but I don't think it's public doman though. --Black Tusk (talk) 18:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Those are geology belts; different again; the Omineca Belt tipped me off, it's not in Holland's sytem, that's a geological/mineraological area; never eseen the "Foreland Belt" for the Rockies before either....Skookum1 (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Found it - here it is - and when you look at it note that my Cariboo/Thompson Plateau articles need revision because of his contents/map; the Bonaparte I got right but assigned it to the wrong parent palteau (the Thompson is the correct one). BTW about the "marge" between the Cariboo and Thompson cats re Wells Grey-Clearwater I'm thinking that that's thte most likely subcat name for that area; the town of Clearwater is theoretically Category:North Thompson but everything up the Clearwater River from there is not really North Thompson, it it? North of Mahood/Canim Lakes is the Cariboo, osstensibly, while south of it is the Bonaparte Plateau; just east is of course the Clearwater valley. This area isn't really part of the Cariboo or Thompson or Bonparte Countries; it's its own "country".....there's a desnity of articles in this area (thanks to you ;-0) which prediate a subcat for it; I'll do this later; the Holland map will help sort out your Edziza-area questions and also give us some ability to map/article out the northern basins like the Liard Plateau and Dease Plateau etc.Skookum1 (talk) 19:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, the geologic map and here is where I found the infomation to create the article. --Black Tusk (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The word "geography" does not occur on that page, which is titled "Cordilleran Geoscience". Geoscience and geography are not the same thing (as a quick glance at listings of most university department listings will serve to demonstrate). "Region" is a word not exclusive to geography; it's also found in political science and ethnography as well as geology/geoscience. For sure "Omineca Belt" can't be part of the same system as it doesn't match the alignment/shape of the plateaus. This is a geology article, or rather that's a geology reference, not a geography one. Granted, geography is pretty vague but it does have a separate classification from other fields, including its sister fields of geology and ecology (and economics). This is also one of those cases where a federal agency has gone and defined things without any reference to the provincial classification system; I'll poke around Energy, Mines and Resources (the BC equivalent of Natural Resources Canada); because it's geology they probably use the same terminology; but we still have to determine what happens to this term when it crosses the 49th Parallel - and the 60th and/or the 141st meridian (the Alaska-Yukon boundary); presumably NRCan's definitions carry across into the Yukon. But they're not likely to into the US, where a name-change can be expected I'm pretty sure. Holland's map and main doc I've got on a CD, off my hard drive now, which it being 1:50 am I'm not going to pull out and mount tonight, but I'm going to have a look at his map because I know it has differnet lines than the "belt" outlines on NRCan's maps...Skookum1 (talk) 05:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

[undent]The link in your second post/first reply above is to "Geology"; in the index-links at the top of that page this link goes to "Physiographic regions" which is waht I was looking for; there are four systems indeed, but the Interior Plains are one of them and the other tree are the Eastern System, the Interior System and teh Western System; the maps are a bit sloppy (e.g. the Cariboo Mountains are shown flanking the Fraser, not on one side of them) but their listings are what I was expecting to find; this is the geography, the map/article you linked from the same site is the geography; just as if you looked at ecozones/ecoregions they're different again.....I'll amend the Western Cordillera section head now; this isn't an authoritative source however and it makes gaffes like "Omineca Ranges" instead of Omineca Mountains (the distinction is a latter-day one apparently invented by Holland and perfected by BCGNIS - "Mountains" in proper anmes like Columbia Mountains, Coast Mountains, are groups of "Ranges"...there was no formal disstinction in the old days, hence Cameslfoot Mountains and Boundary Mountains for waht are now the Camelsfoot Range (singular) and Boundary Range (singular)....multi-tiered definitions of landscape are a bedevilment, but we have to deal with them and can't try to combine them willy-nilly; that's WP:Synthesis....Skookum1 (talk) 06:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my comment. Black Tusk (talk) 19:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Not arguing, just querying; but see Talk:Intermontane Plateaus#Intermontane Plateaus v. Interior System.Skookum1 (talk) 19:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Also Talk:Physiographic regions of the world.Skookum1 (talk) 19:31, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

In simpler terms, Intermontane Plateaus/Interior System (US/Can usages respectively) include the areas covered by Intermontane Belt and Omineca Belt, but they're in two different hierarchies, the one geographic, the other geologic; ecologic is yet another category, and in social sciences - ethnography e.g. - there are different terms again ("Northwest Plateau" in the south, "Subarctic" in the north).Skookum1 (talk) 19:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue either. When I found the geology map in the my first posting I did see the "Physiographic regions" page you found above (that's on the same site isn't?) but I didn't mention it on Talk:Western Cordillera (North America) because I forgot about it. What I ment in my edit summery is the Intermontane Belt and the Interior System are in the same region and they both include the same features i.e. rolling hills, high plateaus, and deeply cut valleys, which all have some thing to do with geography and geology. But the Interior System and Intermontane Belt are basically the same thing with different names according to the maps. The Western System includes the Coast and Insular belts, the Eastern System includes the Omineca and Foreland belts. Black Tusk (talk) 21:06, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

They're not the same thing, BT. The Interior System is about topography, the Intermontane Belt is about what's underneath the topography, the geological/subsurface structure, and also in the same area described by the Interior system is teh Omineca Belt as well; they're not part of each other; they occupy the same coordinates (i.e. Omineca Belt+Intermontane Belt have roughly the same latlong/spatial coordinates as Interior System; the term "Intermontane Plateaus" is the US equivalent/extension of the Interior System; and while plateaus have a geological history, they're topographic in nature.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm going back to my usuall. Black Tusk (talk) 21:58, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

BTW Skookum1, there is no real organization between geology and geography. It's an old battle - the distinction between geology and geography, with most geologists regarding them as related but distinct disciplines with areas of overlap e.g. glaciology and geomorphology, while there are some geographers that view geology as a sub-discipline. This is why some geology cats are sub-cats of geography cats. It's obviously not clear what the alternative hierarchy would be - it bears thinking about. BT (talk) 11:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)