Talk:Hadean

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Rename section "Subdivisions" to "Proposed subdivisions"

I intend to rename the section "Subdivisions" to "Proposed subdivisions". There are no subdivisions. And the article on the "lunar geologic timescale" suggests these are not in widespread use. So the section name is kind of misleading and could falsely make a skimming reader "learn" that the Hadean has subdivisions. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:31, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

* Support rename to "Proposed subdivisions". GeoWriter (talk) 15:12, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should we just delete the section? It places undue weight on an unadopted proposal. — hike395 (talk) 17:23, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was the sentence "Nevertheless, at least one notable scientific work has advocated using the lunar geological time scale to subdivide the Hadean eon of Earth's geologic time scale." in the Lunar geologic timescale article that ultimately provoked me to start this rename proposal. I was worried that WP:UNDUE might apply. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with this subject matter and the current literature and state of the field to make the call there. I was also concerned about WP:CRYSTALBALL but the proposed rename makes that issue disappear so I figured that's the minimum first step to improve the article. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very much in favor of renaming, but I thought it would be even better to just delete the section. AFAICT, this proposal is now 13 years old and has gotten very little traction. — hike395 (talk) 05:53, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think I favor delete. Compared to the number of adopted proposals (in any field, pretty much), failed proposals (or proposals not yet acted upon) are far more numerous. There has to be something very special about an unadopted proposal to make it worthy of inclusion. The U.S. Equal Rights Amendment is certainly one of the latter. Is this? I doubt it. Mathglot (talk) 12:15, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blatant lie

The lead claims (although uses weasel-wording "may have", "appears") that plate tectonics started in the Hadean. This is simply not the consensus belief. It is believed - according to Wikipedia - that plate tectonics "started" ca 3.4 Gya. Period. That's the Archean, not Hadean. This claim has two references one (July 2024) is far too new to be considered authoritative. The other, published in 2021, has only 33 citations (!!). This is a very low number for a paper making extraordinary claims (i.e "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"). I've noted more and more editors seem to need to push their views rather than provide balanced information. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case here. The lead needs to be corrected. The preponderance of the evidence is that tectonics "started" ca. 3.4 Gya, but there is evidence that it may have started much earlier - in the Hadean. Balance requires that mentioning that some (sparse) evidence suggests subduction existed in the Hadean is, clearly, a recent finding and has yet to be generally accepted. Doesn't mean it's wrong. Just means it's not known if it's right (yet). (I personally favor a Hadean "start" - seems most plausible to me, but my opinion isn't science.) Do "maybes" belong in the lead? Well, certainly not upfront, imho. And they require more context (i.e. balance) than the consensus viewpoint.98.17.181.251 (talk) 01:09, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you read further in the article, to the plate tectonics section, you would see a number of references that discuss the hypothesis both in favor and against Hadean plate tectonics. I copied the three most-cited references into the lede, one of which dates back to 2009.

We have a guideline about balance in the lede of articles. Both the lede and the article should both present a balanced view. It's not good for the body of the Hadean article to present a hypothesis about plate tectonics while the lede is silent.

Finally, Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. The lede of Plate tectonics is not a reliable source that plate tectonics started 3.4 billion years ago, nor is it a reliable source for or against a consensus view. In fact, I will now edit that lede to attempt to reflect the controversy.

You're welcome to find reliable sources against the hypothesis and add them to the article for balance, but your supposition that this is a recent finding and is the result of tendentious editing is not correct. — hike395 (talk) 02:54, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

citation does not support claim

...starting with the planet's formation about 4.6 Ga[4][5] (estimated 4567.30 ± 0.16 Ma[2] ...

citation [2] is:

Cohen, Kim (October 2022). "New edition of the Chart - 2022-10". International Commission on Stratigraphy. Retrieved 16 January 2023. "2022/10 - Hadean: GSSA instated as ratified by IUGS (5-10-2022). The GSSA is 4,567.30 ± 0.16 Ma."

The link provided does not appear to support the precision of the "4,567.30 ± 0.16 Ma" figure. For the start of the Hadean it indicates only 4567 Ma, without an explicit uncertainty, despite other figures in the table having one.

There is also a minor error in the citation: the source names its lead author as "Cohen, K.M.", not "Cohen, Kim".

2600:4040:A05F:B200:C57C:80BE:57AD:EE8C (talk) 20:02, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Plate tectonics?

Current thinking appears to be that the early Earth may have had stagnant lid tectonics, rather than plate tectonics. The transition to plate tectonics came later, possibly during the Archean epoch. For example:

Debaille, Vinciane; et al. (July 2013). "Stagnant-lid tectonics in early Earth revealed by 142Nd variations in late Archean rocks". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 373: 83–92. Bibcode:2013E&PSL.373...83D. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2013.04.016.
Wyman, Derek (January 2018). "Do cratons preserve evidence of stagnant lid tectonics?". Geoscience Frontiers. 9 (1): 3–17. Bibcode:2018GeoFr...9....3W. doi:10.1016/j.gsf.2017.02.001.
Brown, Michael; et al. (2020). "Plate Tectonics and the Archean Earth". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 48: 291–320. Bibcode:2020AREPS..48..291B. doi:10.1146/annurev-earth-081619-052705.
Stern, Robert J. (November 2018). "The evolution of plate tectonics". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 376 (2132). id. 20170406. Bibcode:2018RSPTA.37670406S. doi:10.1098/rsta.2017.0406.
Roberts, Nick M. W.; et al. (September 2022). "On the enigmatic mid-Proterozoic: Single-lid versus plate tectonics". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 594. id. 117749. Bibcode:2022E&PSL.59417749R. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117749.

However, it is still being debated and various models have been proposed. Praemonitus (talk) 13:57, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]