h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Conceptual Tables - A1131869
Author: Fragilis the Melodical - U136122

Please also see:

Furniture Tables
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A1131896

The Round Table
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A1131887

I'll have a better look at this when I'm less tired, Fragilis.

I'm in no hurry, Zarquon. Take your time.

I very much appreciate your looking over all three entries.

In the American west, a tableland is usually understood to be an area full of mesas, which are another kind of geomorphic table than a piedmont. This particular feature is often due to the horst and graben structures of a thinning continental plate, but sometimes can be explained by a localized caprock.

Oh, dear. I had this trouble once previously with this project. I don't understand many of the words you used, Sea Change, including:

piedmont
horst
graven
caprock

I'd love to include the information. But I'll need a translation into layman's terms first. I'd feel bad simply repeating a sentence I don't understand.

Limited geology knowledge - but its kinda physical geography too so I hope these help:

Foothills at the base of a mountain range can be called a piedmont.

A horst is an upstanding block of the earth's crust that is bounded by faults and uplifted by techtonic processes.

A graben is the down faulted areas which are adjacent to horsts. (I have not seen it written with a v and as the graven is linked to horst I believe you are looking for the word with a b instead)

A strata of hard rock that overlays a less resistant rock is called a cap rock - it prevents the less ressistant rock from eroding.

Hath
x

There's a typical area of Italy of tableland (your definition) called the piedmont, and geologists who study the shapes of the earth consider it archetypical. I *have* heard it called a tableland in school, so you aren't wrong. It's only that the name piedmont has a unique meaning and tableland does not. Most of the east coast of the United States has a piedmont, in which there is an area of flatness or gentle undulations that come out of the Appalachian mountains suddenly hit a "cliff".

I never really understood horst and graben structures until I actually saw them in field work. Perhaps a Google Image search would help. They happen where the earth's crust is being stretched, so some flat blocks remain high, and others fall.

A Researcher called Rita did a geological survey on a section of Colorado and turned it into an Edited Entry here. One of the landforms she studied was a very large mesa with a caprock, and the article has links to pictures of what they look like.

Thanks Hath and Sea Change. It looks like I have a little more research to do. When I've reworded the bits on tablelands, I'll let you know.

Okay. I have updated my entry in the following ways:

* I've added a sentence in the first paragraph of the section Organizational Tables to explain the likely rationalization to call them 'tables' in the first place.

* I've divided the section on Geographical Tables into two new sections, Water Tables and Land Tables. The Land Tables section is greatly expanded from the related material in the previous version.

* I've added a reference in the section The Most Clever Table Yet Devised to the periodic table table. This is a modern art furniture table that mimics Mendeleev's conceptual invention very well indeed.

Table Bay! Periodic table table! Excellent &

The geological section looks good to me. Nicely done.

I suppose a Scout might pick this and a Sub-Editor might edit it, but no front-paging would happen for two weeks. Ah, well.

Perhaps a section could be added about time tables.

The Professor
Societas Eruditorum

Thanks again, Sea Change. I'm glad the additional research paid off.

Professor, how could I possible have forgotten time tables?

I'll be on that shortly. Thanks for the idea!

Oh, I looked at that and though 'She has put times tables in!'

Time tables! Aha. This is looking good and obviously about to get better, Fragilis.

Thanks, Zarquon.

This time, I've made the following changes:

* I've added a section on timetables with a description and some practical tips on how to use them.

* I've removed a bit of dry information on the periodic table, since it needlessly repeated the Edited Guide Entry on that subject.

I'd like to make a last call for changes. I'm not sure whether I really can reasonably, but I'd sure like to.

*shameless self-promotion*

My other two entries on tables have done very well. This one took a bit longer to complete to everyone's satisfaction, but I'd still like to see it accepted evenutally.

And now I'll be very patient. Really.

I'm sure it will come soon enough, Fragilis!

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Oh, yay! Now I have all my tables in a row at last.

Hooray! Excellent works, Fragilis! I await your next obsession with bated breath.

I didn't realize until I saw this, the fourth PR thread in a row in my conversation list that got accepted, that I got such vicarious pleasure to see entries get selected, which was *not* happening often enough for me to get my fix during Petunia.