Wikipedia:Peer review/Marcellus Formation/archive1

Marcellus Formation

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for May 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review to help move it from GA to FA status. I'd appreciate any help of feedback.

Thanks, Dhaluza (talk) 12:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment and question Not sure a comment on categories is a comment about the article itself. The article has category "geology in Pennsylvania", yet the formation extends into 4 states and the province of Ontario, and, by the map, covers a higher percentage of West Virginia than of Pennsylvania. I wonder, is this written as part of a series on Pennsylvania alone? Anyhow, i think it should be included in categories for the other states and Ontario, and/or broader categories that include them all. Question: Is the location of the outcropping in Marcellus, New York, known? If so, I think a picture might be obtained by some Central New Yorkers who are active wikipedians, to add to the article. doncram (talk) 20:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Additional cats added. Dhaluza (talk) 03:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. You didn't express interest in getting Marcellus photos and i wouldn't mean to assert they would be necessary for this article, but i wonder about getting them anyhow, perhaps for use in the Marcellus, New York article or elsewhere. Specifically, the 2nd reference states "Marcellus shale was named for an outcrop found near the town of Marcellus in New York during a geological survey in 1839". That adequately documents the explanation of the name of the Marcellus Formation, but it does not provide further location information about the namesake outcropping. Do you know if any of the other sources do (perhaps the 1839 survey if you have that)? Would all shale in that area, and on banks of Lake Skaneateles, be of the Marcellus Formation? There is grey shale with fossils at Lake Skaneateles. Also there is a Slate Hill Road in Marcellus, we wonder if that would be it. Sorry if this strays too far from relevance for this review. doncram (talk) 17:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

See article talk page. Dhaluza (talk) 23:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

The abbreviations Dh, Dm, Dms, Don are not explained. I personally don't know what they refer to; i would like to have some link from the article to figure them out, perhaps by a footnote from the first sentence using them (which is the first sentence of the article). It could be conveyed in a footnote that, for a more elementary introduction to geology, such as to understand these abbreviations, it may be best to start with _____(some wikipedia article). Also, the parenthetical use of those abbreviations should perhaps be made different in some way from parenthetical abbreviations of chemical compounds.

Early: "Hamilton Group (Dh), Marcellus Formation (Dm), Marcellus Member of the Romney Formation, or simply the Marcellus Shale (Dms), is a mapped sedimentary bedrock ..."

Soon after: "The iron pyrite (FeS2) is especially abundant near the base,[4] and the upper contacts of limestones, but framboidal and euhedral pyrite occur throughout the organic rich deposits.[5] The Marcellus is uraniferous,[6][7] and a source rock for radioactive radon gas (222Rn), which is produced through the radioactive decay of uranium-238 (238U)"

Obviously i am not an informed reviewer, so please disregard these comments if not helpful. doncram (talk) 04:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Or perhaps, why not just wikilink Dh, Dm, Dms, Don, to wikipedia articles on those terms, if they exist? i still don't know what they refer to. doncram (talk) 23:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Sorry to have taken so long with my comments. I agree with doncram's comments above. This is generally a well written article and here are some ideas to improve it for FAC:

• A model article is often useful for ideas on structure, style, refs, etc. I am sure you saw Oil Shale on the Main page recently - I think it would be a useful model and there are a total of 16 FAs at Category:FA-Class Geology articles.
• The article needs to make much of the information presented more accessible to the average interested reader. One way is to provide context to the reader - see WP:PCR. For example, it seems to me it would help to briefly explain the basics of the shale and explain stratigraphy and how geologists look at the layers above and below it and what this tells them. The Fossil fuel section does a better job of explaing things than the Stratigraphy and Named Members sections do.
• Another way is to try to explain or avoid jargon where possible - see WP:JARGON. This is already done nicely at Uranium was also incorporated in these organic muds syndepositionally,[6] meaning it was deposited at the same time, rather than being introduced to the formation later.[60] but needs to be done in many more places.
• Watch for short sections - Age is only two sentences and seems like it could be combined with another section, perhaps Deposition (which could use the ages to provide context). Other is also quite short and could be combined with Iron ore or perhaps expanded.
• Images are generally supposed to be set to thumb to allow reader set preferences to take over (per WP:MOS#Images. I realize two images are very wide charts and they may be OK at their current setting (but be prepared to justify this in FAC). However, the Cephalopod image should be just set to thumb.
• The article could use a copyedit (almost all articles could) - for example Iron ore from the base of the Marcellus formation was actively mined in Central Pennsylvania from it's discovery in the late 18th Century... should be "its" and "century"
• Since more categories were added (outside Pennsylvania), how about more See also links, for example Geology of West Virginia.
• Logically I wonder if it would make more sense to start the article with the Deposition section (with the Age section added to it), somewhat expanded to make clearer what the inland sea and Acadian Mountains were) followed by Description etc. Tell how it came to be, then describe it in detail.
• I also would try and make the lead more accessible per WP:LEAD, especially the first sentence. Perhaps it could be something like The Devonian age Marcellus Formation (Dm), a subgroup of the Hamilton Group (Dh) (also known as the Marcellus Member of the Romney Formation, or simply the Marcellus Shale (Dms)), is a mapped sedimentary bedrock unit which is mostly composed of black shale with lighter shale and limstone layers. (I am sure I have made several geology errors doing this, but hopefully the idea is clearer).
• I have read some recent news reports on negative aspects of the gas drilling in the Marcellus Formation. Here is one on environmental concerns [1] and here is one on not being exploited [2]. Perhaps some of the negative side should be included for WP:NPOV.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I did see the Oil Shale article, and it gave me several different avenues to peruse, which lead to further discoveries that I still need to incorporate. I agree with most of your suggestions, and also came to the conclusion that deposition should come first, since it literally came first. Dhaluza (talk) 05:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the comments have been largely addressed now (with the possible exception of the proofing, which is ongoing). Please have another look. Dhaluza (talk) 11:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry not to have seen your request to take another look until now - the article reads better. I noticed some MOS issues that will have to be dealt with if you are going for FA.

• There needs to be a nonbreaking space between numbers and units "12&nbsp;feet". I also note that some of the unit abbreviations used are not the ones asked for in the MOS. Using {{convert}} automatically fixes both problems.
• References need to be in order, so [1][3][2] should be [1][2][3], for example.
• The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) shut down the drilling in Lycoming County for stream pollution issues, not the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.
• Unconformity is linked once, but should be linked earlier. For example, in the "Overlying" subsection, "disconformably" could be linked to Unconformity#Disconformity
• I like the new pictures.

Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
  • What makes http://geology.com/ a reliable source?
  • Current ref 29 is lacking last access date.
  • Same for current ref 35. Also, Seattle Annual Meeting of what?
  • Same for current refs 54 and 56 and 57 and 59
  • Same for current ref 79, which is also missing a publisher.
  • Current ref 89 is lacking a publisher
  • Current ref 95 has a formatting error of some sort
  • Current ref 104 is lacking last access date and publisher
  • What makes http://seekingalpha.com/article/68716-investing-in-the-marcellus-shale a reliable source?
  • Current ref 110 is lacking last access date and publisher
  • Current ref 118 is just a title, lacks publisher and last access date at the very least, any other bibliographic data would be helpful.

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 22:49, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to check the refs. I added the missing info and corrected the errors. Regarding the access dates, I believe this is only needed for online content subject to change, where there is no clear publication date (as in a journal article). Also on the sources you question, Geology.com is published by a Licensed Geologist with a PhD [3] and Seeking Alpha has a published editorial policy [4] and author biographies [5]. So, although these are not peer-reviewed sources, we can identify the contributors, and see they have credibility in the subject area. Also these sources only used to compliment, not to contradict the more reliable sources. Dhaluza (talk) 14:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)