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The term "astrogeology" is an outdated term that hasn't been in common use since the Apollo lunar exploration era. Those of us in the field refer to ourselves as planetary geologists, not astrogeologists, probably because we study planets and not stars.IntrplnetSarah20:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I agree with InterplnetSarah; Even in the literature, it has been decades since planetary geology was refered to as "Astrogeology". Astrobette16:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - NASA, which is the leading entity of this field, has a research grant prgram called "Planetary Geology and Geophysics". Also, "planetary geology" implicitly includes Earth geology, while "astrogeology" probably doesn't. I don't think it's sound to exclude the Earth from geology of solar system bodies. --Takihiroi03:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a planetary geologist and have been for quite some time, and I've never once heard the field referred to as "astrogeology". Within the planetary science community, we all call it "planetary geology" - probably because we study planets, and not stars, as "astro" implies. Could we flipflop the page and the redirect? IntrplnetSarah14:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, look at that. No, the USGS is not really very involved in planetary stuff anymore, not since the Apollo days. Maybe "astrogeology" vs "planetary geology" is like Beta vs VHS, USGS used astrogeology and NASA used planetary geology and when the Moon dust settled, NASA won, but USGS won't let go? Just speculating. IntrplnetSarah14:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The correction and move sound excellent, so long as the previous term is retained somewhere in the article as an alternate name, or search term (soUSGS can find it and all). At school we had a course called Interplanetary Geology -- is that term at all accurate in the field, so would it rate a mention, perhaps also as a search term? -- Denstat15:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My online research suggests that it is still used occasionally as a popular term, which surprised me, but it shows up in media articles and once on a National Parks Service document about NASA training courses. I'll add a redirect for now, to bring people to the proper term. -- Denstat18:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is mostly a curiosity, but I've wondered for a while why the term Geo is used in a term to describe something on non-Earth planets. I've always associated it with things that specifically relate to Earth. I think is correct, but I won't complain if someone corrects me. It seems that Planetary geology is already an established name for studying rocks on non-Earth bodies, but I wonder if there's room for an explanation in the article of where the name came from, and noting that it's technically incorrect. Is this just an inaccurate re-application of the word Geology, or is there another reason? Izogi23:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Some scientists talk about 'areology' on Mars, or 'selenology' on the Moon. But realistically, there are so many solar system bodies that it would rapidly become absurd: Hadeology on Pluto, perhaps? Mimeology on Mimas? And what ~would you do with something like 2309 Mr. Spock? I imagine most scientists involved in this science simply regard geology as the study of rocks, not of the earth. The Singing Badger00:22, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the response. If anything, I would have thought the logical thing to do might be to create a new term that encompasses rock study on any solar system body rather than simply re-assign a prefix that's used to mean Earth-centric in many other forms besides geology. As far as text in the article is concerned, would it be reasonable to include something like:
"Although the geo prefix typically indicates topics of or relating to the Earth, planetary geology is named as such for historical and convenience reasons. Due to the types of investigations involved, it is also closely linked with Earth-based geology."
I somehow think that the information about the Barringer crater visitor center should be removed. It doesn't seem central to the topic of planetary geology. Besides the visitor center is also described in the Meteor crater article. It anyway seems difficult to justify such a short article not to be merged with the Planetary science article. --Tobias1984 (talk) 21:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Having just seen the latest map of the informal names which are being given to leatures on Pluto, I think it would be good to have a definition of the different types, such as:
Caves, Colles, Crater, Dorsa, Fossa, Linea, Macula, Mare, Montes, Planum, Regio, Rilles, Rupes, Terra, Vallis, etc.
I know that 'Crater' is fairly obvious, but the basic meaning of the other terms should perhaps be included on this page, rather than on the individual planet/moon pages.
Good call. Table found elsewhere; inserted; added lead-in text. Feels like it unbalances the article right now, but only because this thing is in DESPERATE need of further loving expansion! DanHobley (talk) 06:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
