Talk:Pacific Cordillera (Canada)

message: This can also be called the Western Cordillera, but IMO there's no way Geography of the United States Pacific Mountain System should stand as-is, as physiographic regions are NOT delimited by the United States national boundary.  The world DOES exist north of the 49th Parallel.....especially since the Boundary Ranges are stated as belong to the Pacific Mountain System, it's a bit odd that that article's map ends at the 49th.  But there's no need for "United States Pacific Mountain System".  yes, that's the name used, apparently, in the US, but it's the same mountain system as teh Pacific/Western Cordillera as it's used in Canada.  These two should be merged, and the US dropped from the article title; whether it's Pacific Mountain System or Pacific Cordillera or Western Cordillera or another term (and there are others) is debatable; maybe a google-count on each of those would settle it?  But I see no reason for the US article to exist independently of the Canadian one, even though the Canadian one is underwritten at the present time; it would seem that the Cordillera Occidental in Mexico is part and party of the same merge, though I haven't examined that aritcle closely and would guess it includes the Andes etc.Skookum1 (talk) 17:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: or waitaminit - I just read through the Geography of the United States Pacific Mountain System article a bit; from its map i thought it was about the whole cordillera; there's another article yet for Pacific Coast Range and there's that nomenclature issue about the local Coast Range in Oregon vs the use of the term for all of the Cascades/Coast Mountains/St. Elias/Sierras et al......once again, the physiographic province doesn't end at hte US border....only the name does.  Pacific Cordillera includes the Interior Mountains and Columbia Mountains and Rockies, as well as the plateaus between them and hte Coast Ranges; so it'snot the same as Pacific Coast Ranges or the Pacific Mountain System......I'll havee to think about this as to where to move the merge tags, and ingeneral I rthink the geography-of-the-US project editors and geography-of-Canada project editors should compare notes on all these kinds of cross-border crossovers and try and straighten them out....Skookum1 (talk) 17:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't merge these. In most of the literature I have read it is called the Western Cordillera. There is a lot of literature on this topic - it just need to be elaborated upon. The Geography of the United States Pacific Mountain System has a lot of useful information, but it is Ameri-centric. Perhaps renaming to Western Pacific Cordillera (or Pacific Cordillera) - get rid of the United States and then a merger. I'll put in a bit of quick info and will add this to one of my projects that I will tinker on at some point. Thompsma (talk) 07:28, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge discussion

message: This page should now be removed. I've gone in and updated Western Pacific Cordillera to bring some clarity to this debate. There is no precise boundary for these areas in the literature - which is why the confusion exists. I did my masters thesis on the ecology of these areas and had to read a great deal about the geology and naming conventions. It is a nightmare because even in the published literature there is no consistency - mainly due to a US bias where they cut off everything at the 49th as though the earth stops there. In creating the new and updated page I searched the terms Western Cordillera, Pacific Cordillera, and Western Pacific Cordillera in GoogleEarth Scholar and our University library. I include all name places that I was able to find in about 100 or more papers through this search. Thompsma (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated Western Pacific Cordillera

message: I removed
: ... in Canada, the Rocky Mountains drift west and crowd against the Pacific Coast Ranges, ...
leaving, after correcting unnecessary awkwardness, 
: This designation is peculiar to Canada because there intramontane plateaus are narrow and may be considered together with adjoining ranges.
I can't be sure whether what i removed refers to literal motion on geological time scale, or to figurative motion perceived by a northward-travelling observer. The latter phenomenon (perhaps reflecting just less motion separating the ranges in the north) seems obvious to the eye, so pending documentation of actual motion, i'm making it explicitly refer to the relative narrowness in the north, and awaiting verification of any motion on geo time scales.--Jerzy•t 23:35, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Drifting and crowding