Talk:Darling Scarp
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[edit] Name?
From the start of the present article: "The Darling Scarp (previously known as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges) is....". According to the Gazetteer of Australian place names the only official name is still Darling Range. Is there any reference to the supposed name change? It makes sense to me that the two names could exist simultaneously, Darling Scarp for the sharp rise in elevation at the western edge of the broader belt of hills being the Darling Range. --Zamphuor 14:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm, I think some other editors might question the veracity of the oz gaz as the final arbitrary point for place names... give us time re the scarp ref - might be longer than an overnight job... SatuSuro 14:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
I prefer using gazetted names where possible. If the scarp and the range are the same thing, then perhaps we could move it to the gazetted name Darling Range, with an intro along the lines of
"Darling Range, technically a scarp, and increasingly referred to as Darling Scarp, is..."
On the other hand, if Zamphuor can find grounds for the proposition that the two names refer to different things, then there should be separate articles. Hesperian 00:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Zamphuor has already started the Darling fault stub - which constitutes the longer and more significant geological feature. The Darling scarp is merely a shorter manifestation of that fault, and the historically perceived 'range' is the anachronism of the early explorer in misunderstanding of what it really is... The issue here and the next one - is although the gazetted name is for a range - it really is nothing of the sort in physical reality! SatuSuro 01:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with everything you say... but not with your conclusion. If the wider community is silly enough to refer to a scarp as a "range", when we report that silliness, rather than trying to correct it. Hesperian 01:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Proposed Darling Range article
After some preliminary discussions with SatuSuro, I'm proposing to start a separate article for Darling Range on the basis that the Darling Scarp, as prominent as is from Perth, is really only the western edge of a broader 30-40 km zone of hills that can't really be called a scarp. These hills do bear the official name Darling Range as gazetteered (see message above) and on all maps I have access to. I also created a Darling Fault article recently, so I plan to integrate all three articles with appropriate cross referencing, and some more referenced stuff on geological history. Anyone have any problems with this or other suggestions? --Zamphuor 14:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
- Is there any documentary evidence to back up the notion that "Darling Range" refers to the zone of hills rather than just the scarp? The scarp looks like a range from the sandplain, hence Stirling named it "General Darling Range" when he saw it from the sandplain in 1827. It would seem to me that "Darling Range" must refer to what Stirling saw, i.e. the scarp. In the absence of any evidence that "Darling Range" was redefined post facto to refer to the zone of hills, we shouldn't be running that line just because it makes sense and is convenient.
- I would be inclined to move this article to Darling Range per my comments in the section above, and to define it as the whole thing - both the scarp itself and the zone of hills behind it. After all these form a single geographic entity with a single geological origin, right? Hesperian 00:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
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- Nah - I'd separate the fault, scarp and range myself - as they are not single - the fault is much longer than the scarp, and the scarp doesnt necessarily fit with what is known as the range - the differences are sufficient, but I'll wait till zamphuor is back on as I am sure he'd have further comment on this. SatuSuro 01:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
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- I support keeping the Fault article separate.
- But if Stirling named the scarp "Darling Range", and the name hasn't been redefined since then, then I can't see any grounds for having separate Darling Range and Darling Scarp articles. To put it another way: we all agree that the Range and the Scarp ought to refer to different entities, but do they? If the wider community fails to distinguish between the Range and the Scarp, then it is our job to report that failure, not to correct it. Hesperian 01:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
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- After giving this some thought, I think there is room for three articles. Darling Range would refer to the entire entity, i.e. the scarp and the zone of hills behind it. Darling Scarp would refer to just the western face of the range. Hesperian 02:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
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- Re the scarp - some planting guides and botanical surveys separate the scarp soils and ecology from the lands further east - there were extensive public angst issues about quarrying on the edge in the 1970s and 1980s and inquiries, there have been near misses from the wind shear from the scarp for planes at the perth airport, and so on... probably enough items to help populate an article SatuSuro 02:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for all the comments. I did a bit of digging into the literature today, and things are getting clearer. The terms Darling Scarp and Darling Plateau go together as official physiographic divisions, the Scarp being restricted to the relatively steep western termination of the Plateau (the local surface expression of the Darling Fault), while the Plateau extends well to the east. Darling Range on the other hand is the gazetteered place name, as used on virtually all maps, which loosely encompasses both physiographic divisions. I say loosely because the eastern edge of the D Plateau and D Range may not always be identical. The D Plateau is defined as being gently westward sloping and its drainage directed west to progressively dissect the plateau and scarp. The eastern boundary is marked by the divide between areas with different slope and drainage characteristics. While I can’t find any written definition for the eastern edge of the D Range, I would guess one would put it wherever one considered it to cease being suitably hilly, which may not be identical to the defined edge of the plateau. Based on where the words Darling Range are put on maps, the eastern edge must be at least several tens of kms east of the scarp and clearly include the higher peaks such as Mt Dale and Mt Cooke. In specific official publications, all the terms may be used, it just depends on context. There’s a heap of classic references I can cite going back to the first use of the term Darling Scarp by Saint-Smith (1912), and Darling Plateau by Jutson (1914), both available as scanned online documents though I can’t link to them directly. And some modern refs too.
As to an article, I’m presently inclined to have Darling Range as the principle article (as per first suggestion by Hesperian), basically the present Darling Scarp article with an additional section to define the more specific physiographic terms Darling Scarp and Darling Plateau. However, because the term Darling Scarp also seems to be now in common usage not necessarily bound by its official meaning, I’d suggest mentioning in the first sentence or very early that it is more-or-less as a synonym of the range by popular usage. Fault article would be kept separate. --Zamphuor 13:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
