# Talk:Cryovolcano

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On the 6th of February 2005 I started an article titled "Cryovolcanism". Today I moved it here to "Cryovolcano", the place where it should be. "Cryovolcanism" now redirects here. Some people took the time to translate the article to other languages. Perhaps they must make the same changes and then update the international links at the bottom of this page. For the moment I've left the links intact.
I have deleted everything from the old, smaller, "Cryovolcano" article because I believe everything is covered in the current text. I also deleted the statement that the term was coined in 2004 because I believe it's much older. Finally, I gave the article some structure by adding headings, and added recent findings on Enceladus, and rephrased things a bit. Alex.g 16:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

"...these substances are usually liquids and form flumes"
Should this be "plumes" instead of "flumes"? I'd never heard of flumes before, and the link leads to a page on some kind of waterworks. antabus 19:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I've scoured the internet looking for such a thing in relation to volcanoes and couldn't find anything, so I changed it Imasleepviking 23:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Could't fumes have been meant instead, as in toxic gas emissions? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I just watched a 2005 Nova documentary on Titan, and in an interview with Robert Brown, from the University of Arizona, he's quoted as saying:
"The working fluid for a volcano on Titan is water, but it's water mixed with ammonia. And the result of that is it lowers the freezing temperature of water from zero degrees centigrade, down to as low as minus-100 degrees centigrade."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3309_titan.html
I'm not sure if methane was recently discovered in the composition of the secretion, which is why I wanted to bring this up before editing. Also in the documentary, John Zarnecki stated that "whereas on Earth we're talking about rocks and liquid water, on Titan it's ice and liquid methane."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonzomalan (talk • contribs) 06:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC) 

Is a cryovolcano on Earth the same thing as a pingo?    Randall Bart    Talk   21:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Certainly not. Obviously, pingos are not volcanoes. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Good sources that have a lot to say about the subject of this article.

Dykes, Brett Michael (February 8, 2011). "Ice volcanoes are all the rage this winter: How do you stimulate a regional tourist economy?". The Lookout. Yahoo News. Retrieved February 8, 2011.
Herzog, Karen (February 6, 2011). "Ice volcanoes attract curious explorers to Lake Michigan shore: Experts warn to explore formations with caution". Journal Sentinel. Retrieved February 8, 2011.   7&6=thirteen (☎) 01:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Cryovolcano/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: ArkHyena (talk · contribs) 05:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
Reviewer: Fritzmann2002 (talk · contribs) 14:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll take this one on. A bit out of my wheelhouse, but it looks like a fun read. I should get to it over the weekend! Fritzmann (message me) 14:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
Lead

No citation is given for the informal name "ice volcano", and it doesn't seem to be mentioned elsewhere in the body
Cited to this[1] Space.com article to showcase usage. The citation is in a new section dedicated to etymology and terminology -Ark
"common amongst" perhaps to "common on"?
Done -Ark
"As such, cryovolcanism is important to the geological histories of these worlds" seems overly vague, and I don't really learn anything from it as a reader. A bit more detail as to what impact it has on the history is probably warranted
Elaborated as: As such, cryovolcanism is important to the geological histories of these worlds, constructing landforms or even resurfacing entire regions. -Ark
Is there a reason that only the last sentence of the lead is cited? I notice you discuss the internal heat aspect in the Pluto/Charon section; can it be stated more explicitly and in more detail there so as to remove the need for references in the lead (i.e. move the refs to the body and expand on the idea there)
Moved down to the Other dwarf planets subsection -Ark
Mechanisms

"A major challenge in models of cryovolcanic mechanisms..." so do we not actually know what the mechanisms are? It would be good to have an explanation and make it clear whether these statements are hypotheses or observations, as I had some difficulties discerning between the two in the text
Tried to clarify better that the majority of our understanding about cryovolcanic mechanisms remains hypothetical -Ark
"It has been proposed" by whom?
Reworded -Ark
Some of this first paragraph, like the piece about ammonia, seems like it would belong better in the Composition section
Done, reorganized -Ark
"whence cryomagma may ascend from" --> "from which cryomagma may ascend"
Done -Ark
The second paragraph of the Reservoirs section exemplifies my previous concern, does the "may" mean that it does happen that way as well, or that is hypothesized to maybe be able to happen that way?
Rewritten -Ark
The one sentence of the Composition section is not cited
Changed to Water is expected to be the dominant component of cryomagmas. Besides water, cryomagma may contain additional impurities, drastically changing its properties. per source 5: There are good reasons to believe that water is the dominant component of cryomagmas on most icy bodies. and ... aqueous cryomagmatic liquids on icy bodies are unlikely to be pure. A range of possible additives exist... -Ark
The table in the Composition section should probably be turned into plaintext, or its content should at least be summarized in plaintext
Summarized in plaintext, opting to keep the table as I would argue it's still a good way to quickly get info about some basic properties -Ark
Types

I think this section would be better placed in front of Mechanisms
Done -Ark
"expected to be driven by the exsolvation of dissolved volatile gasses as pressure drops whilst cryomagma ascends" whew this is a bit much for me as a layman. Is there another way to say exsolvation at least? I think I get the rest of it but that word is a sticking point
Reorganized this entire section, emphasized that exsolution basically means fizzing up -Ark
"No instances of active effusive cryovolcanism have been observed" again, this would be a good preface, and the rest of the material in the paragraph should be qualified with that disclaimer. From my first time reading it, I get the impression that effusive cryovolcanism is an established process we've observed in action, not the hypothetical mechanism for structures that we've seen and assume are a result of it
Moved to 2nd sentence of the subsection -Ark
Observations

Years for these observations would be really helpful; for example: when did the Dawn orbiter arrive at Ceres?
Dates added throughout -Ark
"impact-induced upwelling" is this another type of cryovolcanism that should be mentioned in the mechanisms or types sections? I don't recall there being mention of impacts spurring an eruption
Described the role of impacts in cryovolcanism in the Eruption subsection -Ark
"may indicate that Ceres had a subsurface ocean in its past" how so? I'm not making the connection here
Clarified the relation between Ceres's geological activity and its potential subsurface ocean -Ark
"which are hypothesized" by whom?
Reworded -Ark
First sentence of Europa section has some grammar issues that make it difficult to parse
Split into two sentences: Europa receives enough tidal heating from Jupiter to sustain a global liquid water ocean. Its surface is exceedingly young... -Ark
"dense web of lineae" what are lineae?
Reworded as Its most striking features, a dense web of linear cracks and faults termed lineae... -Ark
Link or explain subduction
Linked and explained -Ark
"few, if any ,..."
Done -Ark
The timeline in the second paragraph of Europa should be more detailed. When is "in the past", when did the Hubble telescope "hint" at cryovolcanism, and how recent is "more recent"?
Dates given -Ark
What observations did Hubble make that provided evidence of cryovolcanoes?
Elaborated as ... detected columns of excess water vapor up to 200 kilometers high... -Ark
What is "chaos terrain"?
Clarified as where the crust appears especially disrupted... -Ark
"has been interpreted" by whom?
Reworded -Ark
What is a "cryovolcanic cone"? This is its first mention, and it is not explained elsewhere
Explained in the new Etymology and terminology section: cones (analogous to cinder cones and spatter cones) -Ark
Where is Argadnel Regio on Europa? Is there a wikilink that would explain this, like a list of geographical features?
Unfortunately, it has no page and the List of geological features on Europa#Regiones only gives coordinates. Based on coordinates given by the GPN[2], probably the most specific that can be done is ... a region in Europa's southern hemisphere. -Ark
"which have been identified" by whom and when?
Reworded; also elaborated on how a cryovolcanic origin for the paterae are still inconclusive -Ark
In the Enceladus section, you mention "feeding rings"... this seems like a really important part of cryovolcanism that isn't elaborated on at all. How do they feed the rings? What does that process look like? Are all outer planet rings a result of cryovolcanism? I would at least include a paragraph on this, probably in the Mechanisms section
I'm unsure if there should be much elaboration beyond what's already covered in Enceladus's article and Rings of Saturn#E Ring (which I've now linked as "further information" for the subsection), since this is a unique case and does not affect Enceladus's geology all that much beyond making it brighter. If you disagree though, let me know -Ark
"form from maar-like eruptions" what is a maar-like eruption?
Linked and explained as forming by explosions of boiling subsurface liquid as it is rapidly heated by magma (in this case, cryomagma) -Ark
References

I notice that you give page numbers for some references, and not others. Is there a reason for this, and can you standardize it?
Yeah, looking at several of the references, a whole paper is given without page numbers for the claim quite often. I would really rather not read a 27-page article to hunt down the specific claims, so page numbers or at least ranges are going to be needed for some of these longer refs, like #2. Once these are given and the majority of the prose issues are taken care of, I'll do a careful reference sweep
I've gone through and added page numbers for some other sources. For those I haven't, the source is either short or the sourced material can be found in the abstract and/or introduction. I may have missed some, so do let me know if there are any long sources I've missed -Ark
General

I notice there is no discussion of the history of discovery of cryovolcanoes. When were they first hypothesized, who coined the term, and when were they confirmed?
I detailed the origin and etymology of the term in a new Etymology and terminology section. I'm unsure as if much can be written on the history of cryovolcanism beyond growing observations, as cryovolcanism is a relatively new phenomena in planetary science -Ark
There are weasel phrases throughout the article. I've pointed out some of them, but there are many more that need to be addressed
There are a few instances of a "-" being used for a range of numbers, instead of an en-dash ("–")
Should be fixed! -Ark
Can any of the images in the gallery be moved to more appropriate locations within the article, to more effectively illustrate it?
Possibly, though I'm unsure as to which. I wanted to have a gallery so that there could be a single compilation of a variety of probable cryovolcanic structures across the Solar System without cluttering the main body. -Ark
While the prose is generally very well written, it suffers from not explaining terms used in this very narrow subfield. I've pointed out a few, but niche technical terms need to be either wikilinked or explained, and preferably both are done
Please drop me a ping once you've finished with these comments so I can knock out the source review! I apologize for the delay, I've had a few other projects going on and finals are taking up quite a bit of time. Good luck! Fritzmann (message me) 21:51, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

@Fritzmann: No worries! Apologies from my own end for the long delay, I hadn't seen this for a few days and it came up right around my own finals too. I've addressed all of the points above (with comments), so hopefully the most glaring issues should be out of the way now! ArkHyena (talk) 11:18, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
@ArkHyena: massive, massive improvements! The structure and flow of the article is much better now, and the terminology section at the start is particularly useful. Thank you for adding some page numbers as well, I was able to validate the content of refs 2, 5, 12, and 16. With no source-text integrity issues I can determine, I'll be passing the article in just a moment. Congratulations! Fritzmann (message me) 14:39, 22 May 2024 (UTC)