Talk:Precambrian

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I have reverted the page to remove the comment "Because it makes up roughly seven-eights of the earth's history, reffering to it as a singular time period is misleading." From the opening paragraph. If there is a debate about whether it ought to be called a 'time period' or not, then that ought to be mentioned in the article (with opposing views, if there are any, mentioned) it has no place in the opening paragraph, which is merely a summary of what the article is about. Cheers --Monk Bretton 16:52, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC) (PS there is only on f in referring).

I understand. bad idea.vvv

1 Copyvio
2 oldest rocks
3 Age
4 typo?
5 Smithsonian (AP article)

[edit] Copyvio

The section labelled Precambrian era is a cut and paste job from the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.[1] I'll remove it. Matt 16:27, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

other contributions by Megaman1188

http://www.nps.gov/blca/webvc/geo_pre.htm probably PD-usgov (yes, sitenotice says so.)

The former link is copyrighted, but the latter is in public domain because it is a governmental source and no copyright is explicitly mentioned on the page. I'm not familiar with the Columbia Encyclopedia, but I suspect its information copied from the National Park website. Therefore the text probably didn't violated copyright. However, Wikipedia is not a public domain text dump, so considerable rewriting is needed before the text could be readded. (PS. I fixed Megaman1188's contributions link.)--Jyril 19:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] oldest rocks

An edit from April 26th of this year correctly cites some research on zircon crystals from 4400 million years ago. But attributing that age to existing "rock beds" (identified as a little older than 3800 Ma in the prior edit) is somewhat misleading, because the zircons are detrital -- they're grains that eroded out of pre-existing rocks. Those older rocks no longer exist, only the zircons do, so the oldest existing rock beds still only date to around 3800 Ma. I'll clarify this in the paragraph about the Hadean Eon. Cephal-odd 17:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Age

It says that earth is 4.5 million years old here, however I usualy seeit as 4.5 billion years old someone please clarify and correct if needed.

It says 4500 million years, which is the same as 4.5 billion - if there is a place "4.5 million" is used, please point it out. Thanks. Cheers Geologyguy 01:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] typo?

I might just be really ignorant, but in the opening paragraph there seems to be a terrible typo... the evolution of abundant macroscopic hard-shelled fossils. I didn't know that fossils could evolve ??? --DragonGuyver 04:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Geologyguy 04:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smithsonian (AP article)

The Associated Press ran an article today about a fifth-grade student finding a mistake made by the Smithsonian that said the "Precambrian" was an "era". Already a couple of people have tried adding copies of the AP article to Precambrian. May I point out that articles on outside news sources are copyright those news sources. We can link to those sources, and cite them as references, but we should not copy them. See Wikipedia:Copyrights. I'm also unconvinced this event (as interesting as it may be to hear about) is relevant to the Wikipedia article on Precambrian. As described in the intro, it's "an informal name." If someone gets it wrong -- even an organization as important and respected as the Smithsonian -- that's not an earthshaking event. I'm posting here in order to open discussion as to whether it should be mentioned at all. I submit that if it is mentioned, it should be mentioned briefly (not giving the whole detail of the article) and not in the intro (which is supposed to give particularly essential information). (Note: For two of the news sites that contains the article, see here and [2].)-- Why Not A Duck 22:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that we should put it in. perhaps we could create a new section, such as "references to Precambrian in popular culture". i'm sure there might be other examples and instances? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it is absurdly trivial and does not belong here at all. Perhaps in an article on Newsworthy accomplishments of 5th graders, but not here. It contributes nothing at all to understanding of the subject of the article. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 22:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it even merits a brief mention. Bcostley (talk) 23:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Totally irrelevant here, this isn't wikitabloid. And as for "references to Precambrian in popular culture" - such sections are usually just absurd piles of trivia - don't need 'em. Vsmith (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)