Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2005 Eureka Earthquake

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to List of earthquakes in California. Presumably no prejudice against un-redirection should more of WP:GNG be met. Looks like portions of content were already merged to the target. slakr^\ talk / 04:55, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2005 Eureka Earthquake

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No damage, injuries or other effects from this event. This is what we have the list articles for. The encyclopedia does not need stubs. There are literally several dozen large to very large earthquakes in the interior of the Gorda Plate and along the Mendocino Fracture Zone and the Blanco Fracture Zone in the last hundred or so years. This, like the others, was a strong offshore event with no lasting impact on people, places, and things. There is nothing to say about it except that it happened, so no meaningful or educational article can be created. Therefore, we should simply redirect this to the entry for it on one of our list articles (List of earthquakes in California). Dawnseeker2000 00:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to List of earthquakes in California. Between 1873 and 2005 there were no less than twenty six (26) large earthquakes within the Gorda Plate. All of these would have been felt in Eureka. That's all there is to say about the majority of these events. They don't need stand-alone articles. Put them on the list(s) and don't pretend they'll ever be anything more than a stub. We don't need stubs. Dawnseeker2000 00:51, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This earthquake is significant though. Especially for tsunami prone Crescent City. Unlike the 2014 Eureka Earthquake, this earthquake actually generated a tsunami. --Prcc27 (talk) 01:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep article! --Prcc27 (talk) 01:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response – It's not significant. Like I said, there are twenty six others that are quite like it, and tsunami are not foreign to the North coast. This 26 cm wave didn't do any damage, so that in itself doesn't merit keeping the article. The maximum perceived intensity (what people reported) in Crescent City, Ferndale, and Petrolia was IV (Moderate). Too light to do anything worth writing about, especially since there are so many other earthquakes that have impacted the area: 1964 Alaska earthquake (tsunami), 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquakes (Intensity IX (Violent) & tsunami), 2010 Eureka earthquake (Intensity VIII (Desructive)), 2006 Kuril Islands earthquake (tsunami), and 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (tsunami) all impacted the area with stronger tsunami or higher felt intensities. We don't need an article on this one; there aren't any scientific papers on it. Why? Because the shocks are a dime a dozen around there. There isn't anything significant about it. Otherwise, there'd be sources. The list article entry will be sufficient. Dawnseeker2000 03:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response: "A tsunami is a rare event."[1] Also, about 6,000 people were evacuated; [2] which means- this event did have significance. --Prcc27 (talk) 16:31, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

~~:Suggestion: Maybe the page should be renamed 2005 Eureka Earthquake and Tsunami... --Prcc27 (talk) 16:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)~~[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect as suggested by Dawnseeker. 7.2-magnitude earthquakes CAN be notable, but this one wasn't. No damage, no injuries, ~~a trivial 26-cm tsunami,~~ no lasting effects. The basic information is already included at the target article. --MelanieN (talk) 00:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: The link supplied above by Prcc27 says "no tsunami was generated by the earthquake".--MelanieN (talk) 00:06, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, if you look on page one (1) of that first link, the report does say that there was a 10–15 cm (3.9–5.9 in) wave at Crescent City, but there is another short report on the event that states the maximum wave height of the surge was 26 cm (10 in). The wave(s) were too small to be considered notable and, besides that, the events that I listed above show that the north coast has seen at least four other tsunami in the last fifty years. I agree with your assessment. The information is already covered in the list. Dawnseeker2000 00:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm going to cause a little trouble here, by noting that there were some downstream effects of this, although I am not sure those effects were unusual relative to the other earthquakes on the list.
- [3], (NOAA ISSUES SERVICE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON WEST COAST TSUNAMI WARNING OF JUNE 14, 2005; US Fed News Service, Including US State News; January 10, 2006
- [4] (read through page 89).
- [5]
- [6]
- "Wet and dry tsunami warning systems: Lessons from high reliability organizations", M Grabowski - Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency …, 2010 - degruyter.com: "Some of the problems noted in the June 14, 2005 tsunami event assessment (NOAA, 2005) suggest the need for more effective organizational." Unfortunately I'm unable to find out if this is a lengthy or short passage, so, I leave you all this data to evaluate. Snippet kinda visible [7] but not when you click through. Paywalls, humph.
- [8] See pages 7 and 8, note inset box.

I would suggest, therefore, if there is anything more than routine about this earthquake, it's the perception that the response to the potential tsunami was not considered in many cases to be all that it might have been. Does that reach notability? I'm honestly not sure. --j⚛e decker ^talk 14:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:18, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response The magnitude of the earthquake was significant, the response to the earthquake was significant, how is this event not significant? Maybe we could merge it with other events that are similar to this one (like the 2014 Eureka Earthquake, other quakes that happened off the coast of Cape Mendocino). The only problem with that is that this earthquake was more significant than some of the other ones. --Prcc27 (talk) 23:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect – The (very) limited information that's available for this event literally requires us to limit what we share about it to what is already listed at List of earthquakes in California. There is too little information available to build an article. I don't believe we should be creating stubs that have no hope of ever becoming a full article, as the better way to construct an encyclopedia is to create comprehensive articles where possible, and to consolidate other less meaningful events into lists. The reason is, I think, is to not let the reader down when they click a link. I do think that this article falls neatly under the list solution.

The links provided by Joe Decker underscore my point regarding the limited information about this event. Those articles mention the earthquake and say, in very abbreviated fashion, that there was some confusion regarding the tsunami warning. We should not create stub article(s) based on a false alarm because we don't want to bore the readers. If we want to discuss an earthquake that was significant because of its tsunami warning, let's do that either in its own article or at Tsunami warning system. However, there is not enough material to make a useful and meaningful article about this one, and there are articles around that can have their tsunami response sections expanded. To create a full, readable article (one that has many concepts to consider) we would need a handful of densely packed sources to work with, and we just don't have that with this one. It has been almost nine years since the event, and if seismologists had thought the event was significant, the paper(s) would have been written by now. But again, there are so many events in that area (one source indicated that for a specific period, this particular region generated ~ 25% of the seismic energy released in California) that this one blends in. There are no papers dedicated to the shock, or the majority of the others, because it is not a convincing or expressive event.

Finally, the light purple/turquoise colors on the ShakeMap that is presently in the "article" scream insignificant. It isn't possible to merge this one with 2014 Eureka Earthquake because that one is now a redirect. It is in the very same position as this one. Dawnseeker2000 17:50, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response

2014 Eureka Earthquake is not in the same position as this article because

a) A Tsunami Warning was issued

b) At least 6000 people were evacuated (which currently isn't stated in the article, but proves the article does have room for expansion)

and c) A Tsunami was generated

Furthermore, it is possible to merge this article with 2014 Eureka Earthquake. See [9] and [10] --Prcc27 (talk) 02:34, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Both shocks are not notable, but right now we need to consider whether this one conforms to WP:LASTING WP:INDEPTH and WP:DIVERSE. The article comes up short on all three. My answers are no, no, and no. Dawnseeker2000 05:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Response "This does not, however, mean recent events with unproven lasting effect are automatically non-notable." Also, there are enough sources on the event. --Prcc27 (talk) 03:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Final statement – I have been working primarily with earthquake-related articles since joining Wikiproject Earthquakes several years ago. The work involves expanding articles where possible and contributing to DYK when the expansions meet the requirements and if there is something interesting enough to use as a DYK "hook". More recently I have begun contributing to Wikipedia:Good articles with several done in the last nine months. Recent events are worked on by many general editors, but I like to work on very old or overlooked events that have occurred around the world, and have been improving the coverage of our articles where possible. I have expanded several of our California-based shocks and even one north coast shock (1992 Cape Mendocino earthquakes).

Many of these earthquakes that meet our notability guidelines have been expanded by the members of the WikiProject with sources like the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America and Science. These journals provide the much needed volume of material that is necessary to expand these articles into something useful for the reader. Without the seismologists' reports in those journals, we're unable to produce a meaningful article, and instead are left with a stub that is not a good read and is not educational. I don't think we should have any earthquake articles like that, and this is the reason why I've selected this one for deletion. We can do better, and in this case, that means redirecting this feeble and non-notable event to our list article List of earthquakes in California. Remember, it's not us that's deciding if the shock is notable. That decision has been made for us. No seismologist was wiling to study and write a paper on this event.

Here's what we have as far as the project's notability guidelines go:

Magnitude 7 or greater: Yes (keep in mind the shock was 100 kilometres (62 mi) WNW of Eureka, too far away to cause any damage)
Intensity of VII or greater: No (MM intensities of II (Weak) to IV (Moderate) were reported in northern Californa)
Deaths: No
Discussed in scientific papers: No
Unusually large event in area of low seismicity: No. It's a large event in a tectonically active area that generates many large events.
Mentioned in mainstream media: Yes, as a news item

We should not be keeping these stub articles that have no content because there are no elements of these events to discuss. Compare for example this relatively minor shock in the eastern portion of California: 1986 Chalfant Valley earthquake. It was a strong shock with a few injuries, but more importantly, there are a few different elements of the event to discuss. That is not the case with this offshore 2005 event, and I don't think the article's creator has shown any valid reason why it should be kept as a stand alone article. Remember, the event happened nine years ago, and if it was notable, the WP article would have been created already. Many north coast residents probably would not choose this shock when talking about earthquakes in that area. Dawnseeker2000 01:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Response "Many north coast residents probably would not choose this shock when talking about earthquakes in that area." Okay, but many north coast residents might choose this shock when talking about tsunamis/tsunami warnings. And if this article isn't good as a stand alone, then we could merge it by creating a page about quakes that occur offshore of Northern California. I still think we should consider the merging possibility. Also, this article does meet some of the notability guidelines... --Prcc27 (talk) 01:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The proposal is to merge the content into List of earthquakes in California. I have just done this, and have included the San Francisco Chronicle source that you just added to the article. Dawnseeker2000 04:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. --Prcc27 (talk) 02:05, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.