Talk:Berkeley Hills

East Bay Hills

The recent edits to the Berkeley Hills article are not supported by the references cited. "Berkeley Hills" is a proper toponym officially recognized by the USGS Geographic Names Information System. They are not defined by the USGS in terms of the name "East Bay Hills", nor by any relationship to the Diablo Range. With respect to the coordinates included on the USGS page for the Diablo Range, these are not about any defined extent of the Diablo Range, rather, they're about locating the region in which it can be found. This is easily understood when you see that Modesto is one of the coordinates, a city which is located in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, not in the Diablo Range. This article as previously worded put the situation as it actually is, namely, that "East Bay Hills" is a looser imprecise usage with no official recognition by the USGS, nothing more. Tmangray (talk) 23:59, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. If you look at the many, many GPS coordinates listed in the USGS GNIS for the Diablo Range https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names/238329 you will see they clearly overlap the East Bay Hills, and their Berkeley Hills component. However, this list of GPS coordinates is geologically incorrect as the Diablo Range is bounded by the Calaveras Fault to the west and the East Bay Hills are bounded by the Calveras Fault to the east and Hayward Fault to the west. The USGS GNIS makes many errors, and I steadily correct them (although that process is glacial), such as including Modesto in the list of GPS coordinates for the Diablo Range. There is nothing geologically to circumscribe the Berkeley Hills, they are just a component of the East Bay Hills which rise just below the Carquinez Strait and sink at Alameda Creek. The scientific, mostly geological, journal, book, and other governmental references that support the definition of the East Bay Hills are on its wikipedia page, and should supercede the USGS GNIS. I am working with USGS GNIS to list East Bay Hills and move those GPS coordinates out of the Diablo Range. Schmiebel (talk) 05:38, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no historical map, nor any roadmap, nor any USGS map, that shows "East Bay Hills" as a toponym, nor describes the Berkeley Hills as a sub-range of the Diablo Range. For one, the Diablo Range has always been the innermost range of the Coast Range south of the Carquinez Strait and Delta. "East Bay Hills" is a historically very recent usage, mostly seen in the mass media context. It's a casual application to denote the hills of a section of the Bay Area, akin to "North Bay Hills", also not a recognized official toponym. It comes into use to avoid having to name every range in a given section because obviously, it would be very awkward to have to list the Berkeley Hills, the San Pablo Ridge, the Sobrante Ridge, the Briones Hills, the San Leandro Hills, the Las Trampas Ridge, the Oursan Ridge, Lafayette Ridge, Franklin Ridge, Walpart Ridge, Pleasanton Ridge, Sunol Ridge, and even the Diablo Range, plus all the other lesser ranges east of San Francisco Bay and west of the Central Valley. It's a catch-all casual term, but not a recognized official toponym. As such, it is not appropriate to elevate its status in an encyclopedic work, although it is at least worth mentioning, but only as to its actual status and usage, historically and officially. Anything otherwise is grossly, and unnecessarily, misleading.Tmangray (talk) 21:19, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: California Natural History Fall 2024

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2024 and 13 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Meaganbald (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Steven loeza (talk) 02:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)