Talk:Rock (geology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.


Rock (geology) is part of WikiProject Geology, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use geology resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.7
This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Redirect

"Rock" does not redirect here. I propose that someone edit that out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.148.72.66 (talk) 13:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stone

"Stone" is missing a disambiguation page. There's also a unit of mass named "stone" (14 lbs, ~6.35 kg).

[edit] Classification of rocks

The 1st two sentences seem to contradict. Are rocks classified by their composition, or the process that formed them. I'm sure a geologist could find a way to word this better.ike9898 01:34, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

By all three: composition, texture, and origin. No contradiction, all three are needed and used simultaniously with differing emphases depending on the purpose of the specific classification project. Vsmith 22:32, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

What type of rock would all rocks have started as?

[edit] "Molten magma"

Is it correct to talk about molten magma? Isn't magma molten by definition in which case it's a bit like "wet water". Nurg 10:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General Questions

Would it be possible for a solid to have a crystal structure and be considered a rock, opposed to a mineral?

A rock is composed of minerals, however some rocks are monomineralic such as chert or very pure marble. So - sorta yes and no :-) the crystal structure pertains to the mineral(s) the rock is made of. Vsmith 15:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
       Follow up Question

Chert is known as cryptocrystalline, what is the molecular structure of marble?


Does a rock necessarily have to have organic material in it? Particularly, do igneous rocks have organic material in them?

No. Most rocks have no (recognizable) organic content. Organic material is typically restricted to sedimentary rocks as it would be destroyed (cooked) by most igneous or high grade metamorphism. OK - anthracite is metamorphosed coal, so there is an overlap there. Now given that, there could be a component of igneous rocks that originated as organic material slurped down in a subduction zone. And if a lava flow engulfed a tree trunk ... Hope that all helps a bit. Vsmith 15:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)



Can a metamorphic rock be formed directly from a mineral? For example, hornblende (from my understanding) is a mineral and also a metamorphic rock that is the direct result of a metamorphosed mineral--is this true?

[edit] Images on this page

As the core of the article focuses on classification of rock origin (igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic), I suggest to replace the current general "rock photos" with images ilustrating the content of the article. There are several suitable photos in Commons, even some featured picture winners. JanSuchy 10:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I could scan the black and white photos from the EB1911 article "Petrology"... (SEWilco 04:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Proposed move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no move. Rock is an ambiguous term, and other terms are notable, e.g., (Rock and roll, a term that is important enough to warrant timeless notability). Patstuarttalk|edits 18:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

This page should be moved to Rock. The disambiguation page currently there should be moved to Rock (disambiguation). savidan(talk) (e@) 06:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with it, seems that the proposeal should maybe also be mentioned on the Talk:Rock page as well. Vsmith 11:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: It will avoid the whole Earth Sciences vs Geology discipline kerfuffle inside the parentheses. Also, I wouldn't expect the vandalism rate to increase since (according to comment logs) Rock is vandalized every 5-ish days, while Rock (geology) is vandalized more frequently, often one or more times a day it appears. Add the two rates together, and it's about the same as Rock (geology), so sadly no change on that front.+mwtoews 08:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: As a periodic disambiguous link fixer I can tell you that for every 1 Rock to Rock (geology) link, I fix 99 Rock to Rock music links. Moving Rock (geology) to Rock would make this cleanup impossible and result in thousands of music articles linking to the geological article and not the music article. On a pure what links here count Rock {geology} has 2,500ish links, Rock and roll has 3,500ish links, and Rock music has at least 13k links. Outside of Wikipedia, it would be hard to argue that Rock (geology) is the more common reference for the term than any other link on that page, especially rock music. --Bobblehead 09:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Rock and roll and Rock music are separate articles with their own namespace — they are not in the proposed move. Certainly, as with other similarly-placed articles, a Other uses blurb should appear at the top, and mis-linked articles will continually have to be corrected to the other uses. I can see that it would be more difficult to separate mislinked articles, however, I don't think this is a big deal, and there are millions of editors in the world to do the simple disambig fix if they stumble on a geology article.+mwtoews 17:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
This is true, they do have their own articles, but in common usage rock music is frequently referred to as just "rock" and a vast majority of links to these articles started off as links to rock and people like myself came along and changed those links to [[Rock music|rock]] or [[Rock and roll|rock]]. It is very common for articles to refer to rock music groups/songs/albums as "rock group/album/song" and to simply call their genre "rock". Just to illustrate my point, I disambiguated all of the main space articles that linked to Rock yesterday at 4:23 am Pacific Time[1]. In the 31.5 hours since I finished that 8 articles have been linked to Rock, all of which are in reference to Rock music. I'm not saying that Rock and roll or Rock music are part of the move, but they are definitely a reason why Rock (geology) can not be moved to "rock". A move of Rock (geology) would definitely cause harm to Wikipedia as large numbers of articles that were intended to link to Rock music or Rock and roll would instead be linked to the geological term. --Bobblehead 19:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. "Rock" is too common a word, with too many meanings (as the current page shows) for us to asignate a primary topic and direct readers there. Readers would be served best by the current disambiguation page, having the whole spectrum of possibilities while just one click away from geology or music. - Evv 14:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose As ambiguous as "Rock" (with several popular meaning) is the main redirect Rock should go to the disambiguation page. though i personally think Rock (science) would be a better title for this article205.157.110.11 23:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The disambig should stay at rock. Andrewa 20:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC) (former rock collector and current rock muso)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Comment by 172.193.254.23

172.193.254.23 (talk · contribs) replaced the article with:

Dear Wikipedia editor guy, Your job must be hell.

Presumably he/she meant to leave the comment on the talk page, so I am doing this now. GracenotesT § 04:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions of the readers, Answer or add on

1) what exactly are rocks made of? I know there are minerals, but what minerals? anything else inside? 2) what are different sizes called for rock fragments (e.g., boulder)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmarmie (talkcontribs) 18:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)