Talk:Siderian

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

• ... that the Siderian is the earliest internationally recognized period on the geological timescale?

• • ALT1: ... that oxygen levels in the Siderian Period rose to at least 10,000 times its original level? Source: Catling & Zahnle (February 2020). "The Archean atmosphere".
  • ALT2: ... that a magma plume breakout occurred during the Siderian Period on a global level? Source: Barley et al. (September 2005). "Late Archean to Early Paleoproterozoic global tectonics, environmental change and the rise of atmospheric oxygen".
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: Hey, I was expanding the Siderian page a lot recently, and I was wondering if it's eligible to be run as a DYK? This is my first nomination in this area, and while I wasn't able to find a picture, I have some ideas regarding what I've added on the article in the past week.
    Although, there was one caveat I wanted to point out: for the ALT2 hook, the information is within a two-sentence paragraph, with it as the first sentence and the reference at the paragraph's end. I have read the rules regarding the insufficiency of paragraph references, but I still included this hook because I believe it presents itself well, and I might as well give it a chance.

— Alex26337 ^(talk) 14:30, 2 December 2025 (UTC).

• Article was expanded in the span of the last week. Sourcing looks fine, images have appropriate licences. No copyvio detected, qpq not required. First hook is interesting, ALT01 is meh, and ALT12 is too technical (I have no idea how interesting it is as I don't really understand it).
• Shouldn't the first hook contain "of Proterozoic Eon"? According to the source, Hadean and Archean were before Siderian. Pinging @Alex26337:. Artem.G (talk) 19:14, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

  @Artem.G: While the Hadean and Archean do occur before the Siderian, they are not classified as a period of time, but rather as an eon and era respectively. According to the ICS's classification, The use of the Siderian is the first (or earliest) time where eras are subdivided into periods (see Geologic time scale § Divisions of geologic time). — Alex26337 ^(talk) 19:33, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

That has to be clarified. The distinction between eon, era, and period is considered technical knowledge. Per WP:DYKINT, hooks need to avoid being reliant on specialist information, and the word "period" is vague enough that it may refer to a "period of time" and not simply "period" in the scientific sense. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:08, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I can try formatting the hook like this:

"... that the Siderian Period is the earliest internationally recognized period on the geological timescale?"

However, I feel like the word "period" may be seen in a redundant form, though I welcome an alternate opinion if you have one.

When I consider other ways I can specify that word though, I only have so many choices. I don't think I'd want to capitalize the period at the end of the sentence (i.e., "...recognized Period on the geological timescale?") because I believe that would be leaning to a grammatic flaw. A similiar issue is brought up when considering the hook be changed to "...recognized stratigraphic period on the geological timescale?", because, while the adjective is a nice addition, the fact would then be incorrect, since the boundaries of this period are defined chronologically (and thus, puts more emphasis on the disambiguity of time).

Generally, pairing "period" with "geological timescale" is what I feel is as close as I can get to making the word specific (unless you view the first alteration in this comment as a better choice), without it being misinterpreted as something else, though this draws a fine line since the word is always on the subject of time. — Alex26337 ^(talk) 23:48, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@Alex26337: Unfortunately, I do not think this solves the issue, as "period" is still too vague to be unambiguous to the average reader. Again, the issue is the word "period" itself: it has different meanings to a layperson and to a scientist. Since this is DYK, and we are appealing mainly to non-specialists, we want to run hooks that are as precise as possible and avoid ambiguity. "Internationally recognized period" does not work because, again, that would not stop a layperson from asking "how is an eon not a period?" Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:00, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

The solution here, I think the solution here would be to make geologic period a link (i.e. geologic period), which would at least help emphasize that it is talking about a specific concept. It would not solve the ambiguity 100%, but it would definitely help prevent misunderstandings. This would require rewriting the hook, however, so ALT1 as currently written wouldn't work. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:27, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

• @Alex26337 and Artem.G: How do these two options sound then?

• ALT3 ... that the Siderian is currently the earliest internationally recognized geological period?
• ALT3a ... that the Siderian is currently the earliest geological period recognized by the International Union of Geological Sciences?

If this angle doesn't work out, we could revisit ALT1. I disagree it isn't interesting: it actually does sound interesting, and I do not think it requires that deep of a scientific knowledge to get. ALT2 though is harder to understand or at least to imagine, so I agree with the sentiment about it. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:26, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I think out of those two, ALT3 works better in my taste; I've been taking the time to think about how to reword the original sentence, and that first one you suggested generally stands out to me more. While I did think of forms that sounded "stylish" when read out loud or to oneself, I believe this sentence sounds understandable enough to the general public, without its knowledge being so exclusive; the word "internationally", in my perspective, communicates the message better than "International Union of Geological Science", which may place people thinking that the term only applies to a single organization rather than the consensus of a broader community.

Between these two choices, this was my best conclusion after giving it some thought, though I still question whether the sentences would be percieved as too general or too specific, to myself and to the readers. — Alex26337 ^(talk) 02:55, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

hey, sorry, missed all the discussion somehow. I agree that new hooks are better, and also that the distinction between eras and eons is too vague for non-specialist. Both Alt3 and Alt3a are fine, approved . Narutolovehinata5, thanks for the hooks and for pinging me! Artem.G (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2025 (UTC)