# Talk:Marcellus Formation

I am a reasonably intelligent person. I rarely mention this, but to document that I am not academically challenged, I'll mention that I graduated with honors from an Ivy League University.   However I have no background in geology.  This is not just "fairly technical."  It is unreadable to those without technical background.  I would like to get a good layman's understanding of the difference between Marcellus Shale energy and other gas production.  I do not get a clue from reading his.  Please tell it so use earth people can get it.  Frog one (talk) 13:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

This is fairly nearly FA, so I'm going to dispense with the usual GA review.
The language is often a bit technical. I can understand it fine, but if you want to go farther - and this isn't that far off from FA Firstly, the section on fossils is not particularly good. As a biologist, I'd like to see more. Some photographs of outcrops of the formation would be useful, but not required.
In short, simplify the language a little bit, and use palaeontological sources, not geological to discuss the palaeontology. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The fossil section has been expanded from palaeontological sources, and additional sources have been tapped to expand the rest of the article as well. Also rather than simplifying the language, the technical terms are now better explained and given more context. Photo also included now, along with a table to support the description of members. Dhaluza (talk) 21:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I live near Marcellus, NY, and so found this article very interesting.  I am not a scientist of any sort, but I found it understandable.  I'd be happy to take more pics if you knew of a particular location in Marcellus.  However, while I know of many locations nearby where there are shale outcroppings (including on my family beach on Skaneateles Lake), and I pass Slate Hill Road in Marcellus often, I couldn't begin to look at a shale bank and tell if it were Marcellus shale or some other kind.  The shale on our beach seems to be a lighter color...I'd characterize it as gray, not black.  Plus, it has many fossils, while the article says there are few in the Marcellus shale.  I do work with someone who sold rights to a natural gas exploration company for some test wells on his property....he could have an outcropping.  Anyway, I wanted to see how interested you are in more pics before spending much time on this.  What do you think? Lvklock (talk) 11:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I found this:  "At Marcellus numerous sink holes exist in the limestone which forms the base of the shales and far below the level of that rock many large springs of water make their appearance in Nine mile creek near by these show subterranean passages or excavations into which portions or blocks of upper masses have been let down to a lower level as we there find A little west of Nettleton's in the road and in the field on the north side are large fragments of the black limestone containing goniatites they were ploughed up and put aside for wall stone Between Onondaga hollow and Marcellus the turnpike passes over the lower shales where it rises to its greatest elevation The shales form the top of the hill east of Marcellus extending along the pond and rising with the upper shales to a considerable height on the south and west side of the village At the quarry of Seneca limestone there is five feet of shale upon that rock then a layer of very impure limestone breaking with a curved shaly fracture containing the Marcellus lingula and a small orthis which is also found in the road but not yet named Along the pond to the southeast the upper thick layer is seen with fragments of rather imperfect specimens of goniatites and orthocerae such as were before noticed." [1]
Also from the same source, "At the village of Marcellus [the Onondoga Limestone] forms the bottom of the creek at the mill It appears to be of a darker grey finer grained and less encrinal than usual but little however is exposed [2]. The shales above the creek bottom will be from the Marcellus, with the darkest shales near the bottom.
Good luck! Dhaluza (talk) 23:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I see that you're aiming to promote this article to FA.  Content wise, the article is pretty good, although the palaeontology side could be developed somewhat - I'm not left with any impression of the significance of the fossils contained; it reads as a list.  What do they tell us about water depth, temperature and salinity, for example? The same holds true elsewhere to some degree; in places the article reads as a list of every fact that could be found about the Marcellus, without any discussion of why the fact is notable or relevant.  However, the largest scope for improvement is in the style of the article.  The text would benefit from a thorough copyedit: there is a lot of redundnacy, and a fair bit of bad grammar.  As an example: as it's currently written, "A diverse eel-like conodont fauna" means "a conodont fauna which resembles a diverse eel" - not, I suspect, the author's intention. A peer review ought to highlight some of these issues, but a careful read through should also pick some out.  Finally, I second the point made above; some references are very weak or on unrelated topics.  A few moments with Google Scholar should enable you to find primary references (which may not even mention the Marcellus if they relate to environmental conditions in the early Devonian), rather than papers which make points in passing.
On the whole though, you seem to have done a great job of synthesising all available information.  Good luck with your efforts to gain recognition for this! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, you've given plenty of good tips on where to work towards improvement. It always helps to have a look from an independent eye, especially a trained one. Your observation about the fossil section is true, and I could certainly use some help there. In regard to your edit comment question about bedrock, I think it is possible to have a rock-unit that exists only in the sub-surface (i.e. is only seen in borings) that does not reach the bedrock layer. Also bedrock is not necessarily exposed, and that section deals with covered bedrock as well (e.g. radon). So "exposures" could be a sub-section of "bedrock". Dhaluza (talk) 10:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I saw this article for Good Article Review. On science-related articles, metric measures should be listed first (with U.S. measurements next). I'll go in to correct them, section by section. I had a couple of minor punctuation issues, I'll correct them as I come across them. Overall it seems to be a good article (from a reviewer with about six weeks' experience on Wikipedia). Bettymnz4 (talk) 22:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm finished with what I set out to do. I don't feel qualified, yet, to officially judge whether or not your article passes. I believe it is of good article quality. Bettymnz4 (talk) 00:26, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The topic may soon receive a larger audience. Here's one indication:

Lowenstein, Roger (2008-10-17). "What's Really Wrong With the Price of Oil". New York Times Magazine. New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-17. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)  Yellowdesk (talk)  21:45, October 17, 2008

I suggest splitting out the section on the Tioga Ash Beds (Tioga Bentonite) as a separate article.  The ash beds extend laterally for much further than the extent of the Marcellus, and it would be useful to link to the article from discussions of other formations (like Columbus Limestone) or use of marker beds in general in stratigraphy. Jim Stuby (talk) 03:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/us/towns-fighting-to-stand-ground-against-gas-drillers.html "As gas drilling spreads, towns stand ground over control" by Sabrina Tavernise NYT page A16, 15.December.2011  97.87.29.188 (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The Marcellus natural gas trend, as the, or one of the, largest and most controversial natural gas sources in the US, deserves its own article. It has great political, environmental, and economic importance, but is now buried in the middle of this long article.  I propose that the Marcellus natural gas development be split off, leaving the geology here.  What does everyone think?  Plazak (talk) 14:47, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

No one objected, so I moved it.  Plazak (talk) 17:26, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

In the Stratigraphy section of the article and in the Generalized stratigraphy block, a mysterious black box obscures two apparent shale formations in the Northwestern New York System.  This black box straddles the Northwestern New York System and the Western Pennsylvanian System (at the Mahantango Formation).  Could this be intentional for
stratigraphy purposes or just something on a copying machine perhaps? Bammon (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to work out what's going on with this image, but I'm mystified. The figure was created from Table 2 of the USGS report 2006_1237. I've done as below and uploaded a new version and replaced the one with issues. Mikenorton (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

In the "Underlying" section, on the Geologic cross section of upper to middle Devonian strata, there are scrambled zeros apparently on the far left side.  Additionally,
the text for the color key appears leftmost on the far left in a scrambled format.  Perhaps screen or carriage return formatting not enforced? Bammon (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The original figure in the USGS report [3] has no issues like this. It appears to have been redrawn, with the directions reversed, no reason not to upload this PD figure as is. Mikenorton (talk) 08:30, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
I've uploaded the original figure and replaced it. Mikenorton (talk) 16:33, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

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