Talk:Glaciers on Mars

Orphaned references in Glaciers on Mars

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Glaciers on Mars's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Holt, J. 2008":

From Water on Mars: "Radar Sounding Evidence for Ice within Lobate Debris Aprons near Hellas Basin, Mid-Southern Latitudes of Mars" (PDF). Lunar and Planetary Science. XXXIX. 2008. Bibcode:2008LPI....39.2441H.
From Geology of Mars: Holt, J.; et al. (2008). "Radar Sounding Evidence for Ice within Lobate Debris Aprons near Hellas Basin, Mid-Southern Latitudes of Mars". Lunar and Planetary Science. XXXIX: 2441. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

Reference named "news.brown.edu":

From Water on Mars: Richard Lewis (April 23, 2008). "Glaciers Reveal Martian Climate Has Been Recently Active | Brown University Media Relations". News.brown.edu. Retrieved December 19, 2010.
From Geology of Mars: "Glaciers Reveal Martian Climate Has Been Recently Active" (Press release). Brown University. April 2008.

Reference named "Plaut, J. 2008":

From Geology of Mars: Plaut, J.; et al. (2008). "Radar Evidence for Ice in Lobate Debris Aprons in the Mid-Northern Latitudes of Mars". Lunar and Planetary Science. XXXIX: 2290. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
From Water on Mars: Plaut, Jeffrey J.; Safaeinili, Ali; Holt, John W.; Phillips, Roger J.; Head, James W.; Seu, Roberto; Putzig, Nathaniel E.; Frigeri, Alessandro (2009). "Radar Evidence for Ice in Lobate Debris Aprons in the Mid-Northern Latitudes of Mars" (PDF). Geophysical Research Letters. 36. Bibcode:2009GeoRL..3602203P. doi:10.1029/2008GL036379.

Reference named "Head, J. 2005":

From Water on Mars: Head, J.; Neukum, G.; Jaumann, R.; Hiesinger, H.; Hauber, E.; Carr, M.; Masson, P.; Foing, B.; Hoffmann, H. (2005). "Tropical to mid-latitude snow and ice accumulation, flow and glaciation on Mars". Nature. 434 (7031): 346–350. Bibcode:2005Natur.434..346H. doi:10.1038/nature03359. PMID 15772652.
From Geology of Mars: Head, J.; et al. (2005). "Tropical to mid-latitude snow and ice accumulation, flow and glaciation on Mars". Nature. 434 (7031): 346–50. Bibcode:2005Natur.434..346H. doi:10.1038/nature03359. PMID 15772652. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

Reference named "marstoday.com":

From Water on Mars: "Mars' climate in flux: Mid-latitude glaciers | Mars Today – Your Daily Source of Mars News". Mars Today. October 17, 2005. Retrieved December 19, 2010.
From Geology of Mars: "Mars' climate in flux: Mid-latitude glaciers". Mars Today.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 14:28, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite

I think this needs work on the structure and style. I'm going to have a crack... see User:DanHobley/Glaciers on Mars. DanHobley (talk) 02:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, after a mere 18 months, I'm going to start working on this. I propose (slash am about to, per WP:BOLD) junking the lede as it is, and replacing it wholesale. My rationale for its fatal flaws is:

~50% (2nd paragraph) of this just describes the characteristics of terrestrial glaciers. That's not appropriate in the lede of an article about Mars glaciers. (It is appropriate in the body text). Figures shouldn't be described in the lede (end 2nd para).
First sentence ("Glaciers formed much of the observable surface in large areas of Mars.") Is both badly defined, and I'm not sure it's true. Ice rich deposits do, sure, but flowing ice doesn't.
The remaining three sentences are fine, but could be clearer.
Glaciers are associated with considerably more than just fretted terrain and tropical volcanoes. Conversely, it's not exactly surprising that they might be found in ("...even in...") craters.

Thus, I've reworked the whole thing. I've made sure to retain all of the actual factual content (discussions of terrestrial features excepted), but the words and structure have changed. There's also some new stuff that I hope adds valuable context. I think the new version is clearer and should provide a sounder foundation to work off. Please edit away if you so desire. DanHobley (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More on mid-latitude: Reuters Niels Bohr Institute