Wikipedia:Peer review/Silverpit crater

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[edit] Silverpit crater

I started this article on the UK's only known impact crater a few weeks ago. I'd like to nominate it for featured status eventually, but I think it's a bit on the short side at the moment and would appreciate thoughts on what more could be included. Worldtraveller 12:33, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• A map and some (seismic) images would be nice, I think. Another thought: the "crater" was discovered only two years ago (note that the date of discovery isn't mentioned in the article: something to add, obviously). That's a very short time for scientific consensus to develop. I would therefore alot more attention to the alternative explanations and not dismiss them outright, as is more-or-less the case in the current article. Make it a more balanced discussion of the various hypotheses. It wouldn't be the first time that scientists and the media choose to believe something they really want to be true. Shades of Piltdown Man, anyone? Also, "Questions about impact origin" is a bit of a misnomer, as the Underhill theory does not involve an impact at all. Good luck! --Plek 22:55, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for some very helpful comments! I've added a couple of images, showing the location and seismic map of the crater, and also tried to give a more balanced appraisal of the competing origin theories. I may just be a sucker for a good story, but my impression is that impact is still generally the favoured theory, so the article still has a bit of an impact slant to it - you may feel it's not neutral enough still? Worldtraveller 22:13, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's much better. And I don't think it the "slant" is a problem. You have defined the two hypotheses and indicated that the impact one is favoured by consensus. After that, it's seems natural to explore that one theory further, as happens in the article.

Some other suggestions: you have provided references (A Good Thing), but they are not cited in the main body of the article. Now, this isn't strictly necessary, but it may help to check if all the facts in the article can be traced to one or more of the referenced works. See Wikipedia:Cite sources for more details.

Also, at the moment there is only one other article linking to this one. You might want to expand the web a bit by adding links to other articles (where appropriate, of course).

The "Age" section is a bit short-ish. I haven't read the source articles, so I don't know if there's more to tell, but you may want to expand it a bit. At least try to explain some more about the techniques and jargon, for the benefit of people who don't know their Cretaceous from their Jurassic. Add some more wikilinks as well to provide some background information. Cheers. --Plek 01:39, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again - very useful comments! I've added cite points to the references, and expanded the age section a little bit (don't think there's too much more that can be said though). Have linked to the article from a few other places and will try to do more of that. Worldtraveller 12:46, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)