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User talk:Theo3356

Spanish Impressions of the city of Tenochtitlan, in Diaz’s Words:

This article is going to describe how the Spanish perceived the Aztec civilization and the central city of Tenochtitlan. The question that will be posed is this: Why were the Spaniards, in particular Bernal Diaz (Spanish conquistador of Hernando Cortes), so shocked and amazed at this Mexican city? What was so astonishing about it? The sources that will be used in this article will come mainly from the books Born in Blood and Fire, and Colonial Latin America. The first book takes you through the evolution of Latin America and the latter are primary source documents from various Spaniards as well as the indigenous peoples. Other information in this article is pulled from various classes that deal with this time period. Before we dive into the Spanish contact with the indigenous people, let’s first look at the structure and society of the Aztec civilization. The main point that should be projected is that this Aztec society was very sophisticated. They had a great education system that enabled their children to grow up and learn and then become vested in the republic. Higher education was also offered (Chasteen 110). There was little crime in this society. This is in large part due to the fact that they had a very elaborate legal code. It was also very strict and carried stiff penalties. For example, a relatively minuscule offense could land you in jail for a long period of time or perhaps even killed. The Aztecs were too afraid to commit crimes in fear of what might happen to them if they got caught (Chasteen 111). Aztec economy was very stable. The indigenous had a tribute system in place so that taxes could be collected from neighboring towns. Their main source of agriculture was maize and beans (Chasteen 120). Slash and burn techniques were often used while cultivating these crops. This helped thrive the economy. The capital city of Tenochtitlan can be described as the Venice of the Americas (Chasteen, 148). At the time the Spanish arrived, the estimated population was somewhere between 150 and 200,000 people. At the same time, Paris had only a population of 50,000 and Seville only inhabited 60,000. This was a big city. This megalopolis consisted mainly of causeways and canals. Canoes were the main node of transportation. They were very efficient in getting about town. The aqueducts were constructed of solid masonry. There were very clean and finished houses and buildings. The few streets that were in the city were always swept and kept clean. One of the major advantages of this city is that they had public latrines. This enabled the city to stay clean. Also, there were many chinampas located throughout the region. These are “floating gardens.” They do not actually float but are located in the middle of bodies of water. Over the years, they become cemented into the base of the lakes and become solid land and then are used to cultivate agriculture. To say that this city was modern in those times were an understatement. This city was far advanced in comparison to many other world cities in the 15th century. Spanish Arrival: The Spaniards first arrived in Mexico in 1519. When they entered, they knew a great deal already about the area and its peoples. This plays a distinct advantage into the conquest of the area. The men who first arrived in the city of Tenochtitlan were not soldiers. They were men who were seeking fortunes for themselves. The basic rule of the land was that the first to arrive would lay claim to the people and their fortunes. The leader of this particular group who embarked on the capital city was Hernando Cortes. Cortes had a distinct advantage when he arrived due to the fact that he had been familiar with the ways and means of the indigenous people for about fifteen years. He had this great knowledge from the time he spent in the Caribbean. The Aztec leader Moctezuma, had no idea what the Spaniards were up to. He actually first believed that Cortes was their god of sun. Moctezuma states, “O our lord, you are very welcome. You have reached your land, your settlement, your home, your Mexico. You have come to sit on your throne and seat, which I have possessed for some days in your name” (Lockhart, 117). Cortes used this to his advantage, and ended up conquering Moctezuma and the Aztec empire. Spanish Impressions of Tenochtitlan: Bernal Diaz wrote a very specific diary of his impressions of the great capital city. Diaz was a Spanish conquistador for Cortes during the time of conquest. He wrote that at first glance of the capital city, “we were astonished and said these things in the city appeared enchantments from a book of chivalry”(Diaz, 111). Him and his people were amazed at what they were seeing. Diaz and his men could not believe how spectacular and advanced the city was. Diaz was particularly impressed with the architecture of the city. “Everything was shining with lime and decorated with different kinds of stonework and paintings which were a marvel to gaze on”(Diaz, 112). He basically was astonished at how clean the city and buildings were. This was due in large part to the public latrines that already existed. Spain did not have public latrines during this time. All of the garbage would simply be thrown out onto the street, giving cities a very smelly and dirty feel to it. This was a big surprise to him. He was also very impressed with the causeways that were in place. He stated that “large canoes could come into the city from the surrounding lakes through a channel they had cut, and their crews did not have to disembark (Diaz, 112). This is all new to him. He really couldn’t believe it. Finally, Bernal was amazed at the first sight of Moctezuma, the Aztec leader. “The great Moctezuma was magnificently clad, in their fashion, and wore sandals of a kind for which their name is cotaras, the soles of which are of gold and the upper parts ornamented with precious stones” (Diaz, 113). He was simply walking with pure gold on his feet. He described his encounter as a marvelous site. He looked like he was a god. He also went on to say how important the Aztec leader was. He had a “holy ness” to him. Before he would take a step, servants would sweep the land in front of him and lay cloaks down so his feet would not touch the land (Diaz, 114). He also has never encountered this kind of thing before. He was simply amazed.

The questions I posed at the beginning, Why were the Spaniards so shocked and amazed at the capital city and what was so astonishing about it were clearly answered. The main point is that they have never seen anything like this before. They were particularly amazed at how sophisticated and advanced the city and its people were. They were also shocked at how clean and kept the city was. Finally they were impressed with the Aztec leader Moctezuma. They had high praise for the city and the society on which the people lived in. However, they still end up killing many of them and taking over the land.

Bibliography:

Chasteen, John 1955. Born in Blood and Fire. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Norton and Company publishers.

Mills, Taylor, Graham 2002. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History. Princeton University, U of California, Berkley, and Sante Fe, New Mexico. SR Books Publishing.

Lockhart, James. We People Here: Nahuatl accounts of the conquest of Mexico. University of California Press.

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Stagecoach West Scotland

Stagecoach West Scotland (Stagecoach an Iar na h-Alba) is an operating region of Stagecoach UK Bus, comprising Western Buses Ltd based in Ayr, Scotland.

Operations
Stagecoach West Scotland operates in west central and southwest Scotland, in an area bounded by Largs and Braehead to the north, Hamilton to the east, Stranraer and Lockerbie to the south and the Isle of Arran to the west. Frequent express services also reach Glasgow and Edinburgh from throughout Ayrshire & the X74 from Dumfries.

Stagecoach West Scotland operates under Stagecoach Western which is the prevalent brand and is used for the vast majority of bus operations throughout the West Scotland region. Most Stagecoach Western branded vehicles wear the old Stagecoach corporate livery of red, blue, orange and white, while the remainder wear the new Stagecoach corporate liveries. It is the principal trading name of Western Buses Ltd.

The company also provide vehicles for Scottish Citylink express work, mainly on the Glasgow to Edinburgh corridor, and also for Megabus, mainly running from Aberdeen to London.

Stagecoach West Scotland had faced sustained competition from the FirstGroup between Ardrossan and Kilmarnock since Stagecoach launched its network of Glasgow city services in the heart of First's Glasgow operating territory in 1997, though First withdrew from Ayrshire in October 2005 leaving Stagecoach the sole dominant operator once again. While minor competition existed for several years from T & E Docherty around Irvine, Stagecoach has since purchased the routes and vehicles used by that operator. Minor competition exists from Shuttle Buses between Kilwinning and Kilmarnock (including local operation in Irvine) and McGill's Bus Services in Largs.

At both the 2005 and 2006 UK Bus Awards, Stagecoach West Scotland took the top award of 'UK Bus Operator of the Year', having narrowly missed out on the prize in 2004. It also received the 'Best Large Fleet Operator' award at the industry ceremony for both years.

History
Stagecoach arrived in the west of Scotland when it purchased Western Scottish Omnibuses Ltd of Kilmarnock for £6 million in July 1994. Western Scottish was, at that time, owned by its management and employees, who had purchased the company from the state-owned Scottish Bus Group in October 1991 on the breakup and privatisation of that concern.

Stagecoach wasted no time in expanding its operations in the west of Scotland, and in October 1994 purchased the small Arran Transport business based in Brodick, on the Isle Of Arran. In January 1995 Western took over the operations of A1 Service of Ardrossan, bringing with it around 75 vehicles and the company's operations in the towns of Ardrossan, Saltcoats, Stevenston and Kilwinning, together with the very busy and frequent Ardrossan to Kilmarnock service. Though for a time the former A1 Service operations were under the separate legal entity of Stagecoach (A1 Service) Ltd, that company has since been absorbed by Western Buses.

Clyde Coast Coaches of Ardrossan, a previous competitor to Western Scottish in services around Kilmarnock, sold its bus operations to Western in 1995, adding services from Saltcoats to Largs and Beith to the Western portfolio.

The last 'big' purchase Stagecoach Western has made to date was that of AA Buses, the bus operations of Dodd's Of Troon, on 1 May 1997. At the same time the bus operations of Shuttle Buses of Kilwinning were also absorbed. This would add local bus operation around Irvine, Stewarton and Troon, and would consolidate the Stagecoach Western operation, securing it as the dominant operator in north Ayrshire, a role Western Scottish never succeeded in filling.

Stagecoach operated in Glasgow as Magic Bus in the late 1980s using old London AEC Routemaster buses, though it sold the operation to Kelvin Central Buses (KCB) in the early 1990s. After a stillborn attempt in 1995 to purchase KCB, Stagecoach settled for a 20% stake in competitor Strathclyde Buses who purchased KCB, the present Stagecoach Glasgow operations were launched in 1997, after Strathclyde Buses sold to FirstGroup, and offered fast, direct and frequent services from Glasgow City Centre to Easterhouse, Castlemilk, Pollok, Darnley, East Kilbride and Cumbernauld.

The Pollok and Darnley routes were express services which made good use of the new M77 motorway in the area and used new low floor vehicles. However, due to First Glasgow's new operations in Stagecoach's key Ayrshire and Fife markets Stagecoach decided to scale down operations in the area. It acquired Arriva Scotland West's 49% stake in Paisley company Dart Buses. Dart took over operation of the Pollok and Darnley services, which were closer to its base in Paisley and more in fitting with the rest of its west of Glasgow motorway express services. Stagecoach supplied vehicles to operate the routes, which continued under the Stagecoach Glasgow livery and brand, while several Dart vehicles were repainted into the Stagecoach corporate livery. Dart Buses ran into financial trouble early in the new millennium and without notice ceased operations overnight in October 2001. First registered the defunct company's motorway services before either Arriva or Stagecoach could, and as such Stagecoach decided not to restart operations.

The East Kilbride services were soon withdrawn, some regarding the timetabling of it as optimistic, and the remaining operations were rebranded as the "no-frills" Magic Bus with rock bottom fares and older vehicles. The Castlemilk operation was taken over by FirstGroup in June 2005 who until January 2006 kept the old Stagecoach service 175 running alongside its own 75 service. Vehicles in the Magic Bus operation wear a deep blue livery with bright yellow lettering, complete with slogans "It's magic!" and "It goes roon the toon!" (sic), the latter imitating the Glasgow dialect. Though the Ballieston service was withdrawn during summer 2006, the Easterhouse service is still operated, though now by Stagecoach in Glasgow branded vehicles, the Magic Bus brand having been dropped in the city.

In July 2004, Stagecoach announced the acquisition of the M8 Motorvator Glasgow to Edinburgh express service from Lanarkshire firm, Longs Coaches. This pitched Stagecoach in fierce and direct competition from Scottish Citylink, a company Stagecoach ironically operated vehicles for under a franchise agreement. Stagecoach continued to use the distinctive M8 Motorvator brand on this route, with vehicles wearing a red and off-white livery, and was operated by Stagecoach Glasgow Ltd. Some seats on the Motorvator service were available for purchase through the low-cost Stagecoach subsidiary Megabus. Both companies offered fast, frequent and affordable express services along the M8 motorway corridor between the two Scottish cities, a situation that continued until 13 September 2005. On that date, Stagecoach and Citylink parent company ComfortDelGro announced a joint venture in the provision of express coach services in Scotland. Under the terms of the agreement, Stagecoach would take a 35% stake in Citylink in return for certain rights to the Megabus brand in Scotland. This ended competition between the two operators and the withdrawal of the Motorvator brand. Stagecoach has resumed operating vehicles for Citylink under a franchise agreement, and many vehicles that operated as Motorvator now wear Citylink livery. However this sale is being investigated by the office of fair trading.

During 2006, Stagecoach introduced several new express services, including the short-lived X33 from Ayr to Paisley later extended to Braehead Shopping Centre, of which part of the route from Ayr to Paisley was originally operated by Western until the 1970s, albeit using a slightly different route. The X33 service was the first time the company had strayed into the heartlands of 'Clydeside' Another new service was the X16 connecting Ayr with Hamilton and East Kilbride via Kilmarnock, although the service was reduced to only serve between Ayr and Kilmarnock from summer 2020 due to low passenger usage, before being withdrawn completely among a number of service cuts from 17 July 2022.

Depots
Stagecoach West Scotland has depots in Brodick(Isle of Arran), Ardrossan, Kilmarnock, Ayr, Cumbernauld, Stranraer and Dumfries.

 * Ardrossan (Harbour Road)
 * Ayr (Waggon Road)
 * Muirkirk (outstation of Ayr and Kilmarnock)
 * Brodick (The Pier) (Isle Of Arran)
 * Cumbernauld (Glencyran Road)
 * Dumfries (Eastfield Road)
 * Kirkcudbright (outstation of Dumfries)
 * Sanquhar (outstation of Dumfries)
 * Biggar (outstation of Dumfries)
 * Stranraer (outstation of Dumfries)
 * Whithorn (outstation of Dumfries)
 * Kilmarnock (Mackinlay Place)

Fleet
As of July 2019, Stagecoach West Scotland operates 359 buses and coaches.

Stagecoach West Scotland is among the Stagecoach Group's major operators of battery electric buses in Scotland, operating 15 BYD Alexander Dennis Enviro200EV and 6 Volvo 7900e buses in and around Kilmarnock, the latter Volvos being partially funded by SP Energy Networks as the UK's first electric buses serving rural communities. 25 single-deck Volvo BZLs and a further two Enviro200 EVs began to be delivered for Ayrshire services in February 2023, part of an order for 39 electric buses for West Scotland throughout 2023, funded by the Scottish Zero Emission Bus (ScotZEB) challenge fund.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Stagecoach West Scotland


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Talk:Levee

Merge
I don't think dike should be merged with levee. Levee is an American term. HoppinHill 13:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please clarify: the article on dikes says that dikes and levees are the same thing and then continues to state that the oldest dikes were built in the Indus valley. This article says that the oldest levees were built along the Nile 3,000 years ago. What's going on here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.112.107 (talk) 19:30, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Higher-high tide
The question was asked in one of the edits what is a higher-high tide ... unfortunately the tide article does not cover in detail the differences in tides, but the short answer is the higher-high tide (HH) is the higher of the two high tides experienced in a tidal day. In mid-latitutdes there are two high tides and two low tides. These tides are further differentiated by adding "higher" or "lower". These designations are important in this article because levee overtopping is more likely to occur on a HH tide. What needs to be done is the tide article needs to be fixed (I've been creating a cartoon targetting the general public to illustrate flood and ebb tides along with the tides for tidal estuaries) -- but I think the levee article should stay as is, and any discussions of the physics of tides should be reserved for articles on tides. MCalamari 16:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

More info
There is much more to be said about levees than the article mentions. The name of natural levees is misleading. It is true that the river banks are frequently higher than the flood plains, but that does not mean that they are levees, because practically they do not protect the flood plains against flooding, even for low floods, because in most cases they are not continuous and there are areas where the water can flow into the plains. One of the important problems in levees is the settlement of the levees. Therefore the compaction of the earth is extremely important. This is not mentioned in the article. Talking about protection, it is not only grass or concrete which is used for the protection. Stones and boulders are frequently used. The plantation of willows is not generally accepted as a good solution. Willows do not have deep roots and can pe uprooted by the floods. If this occurs, the hole in the embankment can be a weak spot leading to the breach of the dyke. The breaches of the embankments should be explained. First of all it should be understood that there is not 100% sure embankment, there is always a calculated risk of failure. There are discussions about the causes of the failure of the New Orleans embankment due to Katrina. However, regardless of the class of hurricane which occured in 2005, there definitely was a possibility of a worse hurricane hitting the area, with higher water levels which would have overtopped the embankment. All this has to be explained. And much more.

Afil 18:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge?
I think dike should not be merged with levee, because levee, though technically a type of dike, has all sorts of associations with the word that are primarily American and dike has all sorts of associations with the word that are Dutch. Considering the fact that the Dutch dike Stelling van Amsterdam is on the World Heritage list, I think you should keep the word dike. Jane 07:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I disagree. Levees are a huge issue in California and other parts of the United States, where the term dike is not used by the media nor by technical firms involved in flood control work.  An example of this is shown in the levee article itself where common langauge road sides are marked as being "levee roads".  Even pop culture frequently uses the term levee (see Led Zep's song "When the Levee Breaks").  MCalamari 19:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a misunderstanding here. I never said that the article on Levee should go, I simply feel that a separate article on 'Dike' should stay. The legend of the boy with his hand in the dike is older than the levees of California. For cultural reasons, the word 'Dike' is important in and of itself. Jane 05:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think both articles should stay too. In fact, the bottom of each article can (and probably should) contain a link to the other.  :)  MCalamari 16:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree the articles should not be merged. While there is some overlap, there are also distinctions-- for example, does one speak of the high ground formed by the natural dike of a river? -- Infrogmation 04:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Against merge. Each page sits well and deserves its own space. Cuvette 21:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Strongly against merge.
 * A levee is above the surrounding ground level - a slope up. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Levee
 * A Dike is a ditch - that is below the surrounding ground level - a slope down. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Dike
 * Addhoc 22:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

 * There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here because of local interpretations of the word "dike". Outside the US (e.g. the UK), the word dike is certainly not only a ditch, but more usually an artificial or natural slope above ground level, just like a levee. The BBC use it alongside "levee", usually "levee" for US reports and "dyke" for other country reports. A BBC quote: "In Lyon County, Nevada, about 3,000 people were stranded after a levee, or dyke, along a canal broke early on Saturday, authorities said, and in parts of the town of Fernley water was up to 3ft deep." 77.248.55.53 (talk) 21:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

If nobody thinks a merge is a good idea, should I remove the tags? Addhoc 22:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I placed the merge tags, and suggest to merge into "Embankment (dike or levee)", see my comments below under "Levee vs. Dike" 77.248.55.53 (talk) 01:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Never heard of a Levee before I came here from a crosslink. Dijk or Dike or Deich is the more common word to me and I am originating closer to france then to the netherlands. Further I can only second that Dijk has nothing to do with a ditch! If anything has to happen, then make a forward from Levee to Dike. Everything else is just poor. -- ([190.80.54.212]) 16:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC-4)

New Orleans in 1672?
The article cites the term "levee" as being traced back to New Orleans in 1672, but Iberville and Bienville did not establish the city until 1718. Even the term was in use by the local population in 1672, New Orleans did not yet exist. Wistlo (talk) 02:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)wistlo I agree that the word levee should not be associated with the word dike/dyke (which ever spelling you prefer) on account you dont here the word levee in the eastern hemisphere as it is heard often in the western the word dike/dyke refers to the structures in Europe that kept water out of the low lying land. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.78.6.249 (talk) 15:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Levee vs. Dike
Sorry, I'm a little confused. I see from the merger discussions above that Levee and Dike are apparently two different things. If this is the case why is the sentence "It is known in Europe as a dike." included in the opening paragraph? Mutt (talk) 06:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Agreed. I see a lot of people wanting to keep the dike and levee articles separate, but I don't understand why. If they're synonyms, they ought to be discussed in a single article. If the only difference between a dike and a levee is what dialect of English you speak, then keeping the articles separate is completely ridiculous. OTOH, if there is some meaningful, non-linguistic reason to keep the articles separate, then this article should explain what that is. Since both this article and Dike (construction) link to the same article on the German Wikipedia, that really makes me wonder if there is truly a non-linguistic difference between a levee and a dike. RobertM525 (talk) 08:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Since a dike and a levee are simply two different local names for the same thing, I suggest merging the articles. For now I merged the text of both articles so that they are identical, apart from the wording "dike" and "levee", and the introduction about the origin of the words. 77.248.55.53 (talk) 00:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Well now the articles are identical they should be merged before further edits are made. My preference is to merge them under the more international term Dike, what do others think? Mutt (talk) 21:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

 * When choosing a common article title the following rules should be followed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Opportunities_for_commonality
 * "Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English. In choosing words or expressions, especially for article titles, there may be value in making choices that avoid varying spellings, where possible. In extreme cases of conflicting names, a common substitute (such as fixed-wing aircraft) is favored over national varieties (fixed-wing aeroplanes [British English], and fixed-wing airplanes [American English]). If a variable spelling appears in an article name, redirect pages are made to accommodate the other variants, as with Artefact and Artifact, so that they can always be found in searches and linked to from either spelling. Sensitivity to terms that may be used differently between different varieties of English allows for wider readability; this may include glossing terms and providing alternative terms where confusion may arise. Insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option does not serve well the purposes of an international encyclopedia. Use an unambiguous word or phrase in preference to one that is ambiguous because of national differences. For example, use alternative route (or even other route) rather than alternate route, since alternate may mean only "alternating" to a British English speaker."

 * Both "Levee" and "Dike" appear to fail these criteria. "Levee" because it is not a common word outside the United States. "Dike" because it is ambiguous, or even means something different to Americans. Mirriam Webster defines a levee as an embankment for preventing flooding; a dike as a bank usually of earth constructed to control or confine water; an embankment as a raised structure (as of earth or gravel) used especially to hold back water; Oxford Dictionary defines a dike as an embankment built to prevent flooding; a levee as an embankment built to prevent the overflow of a river; an embankment as a wall or bank built to prevent flooding by a river. I therefore would suggest "Embankment (dike or levee)" as the common title.77.248.55.53 (talk) 01:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

 * That seems like an acceptable compromise to me. Although I would point out that Embankment seems to have more alternate meanings than Dike and is potentially more ambiguous. But let's get these merged and tackle that later. Mutt (talk) 12:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Am I the only person who thinks that doing a "copy-and-paste" and "find-and-replace" edit to both articles was a rather... "haphazard" solution? It just doesn't strike me as the best way to go about trying to merge the articles... RobertM525 (talk) 08:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Levee as protector???
In the present edition, the article looks self-contradictory. It does not explain the main reason to build up levees at a river as protection against floadings. The levees may simplify delivery of water from the river to the fields, while the water is wanted. As for a river that is danger with floadings, the building up the levees looks like making a hole in the bottom of a boat, as an intent to release the water out. Why, when, how the construction of levees is better than just deepening of the river? Where does the rainwater go, while the river, squeezed between the levees, flows above the mean level of ground? Why this rainwater is not supposed to cover the land around worse, than the river without levees? dima (talk) 09:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

What is a levee?
This line: "The main purpose of an artificial levee is to prevent flooding of the adjoining countryside; however, they also confine the flow of the river resulting in higher and faster water flow." would be far better placed higher up the article rather than after the long-winded explanation of the origins of the word?? 132.185.240.122 (talk) 10:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

a levee is....
A levee is like a big wal that blocks flooding the whole town (like god almighty the movie). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.207.93.113 (talk • contribs)

Army Corps
I think it's worth mentioning that while the Corps did design the New Orleans levees, and supervise their construction by contractors, the majority of the levees were turned over to local ownership upon completion. This is the common practice - a community requests flood control assistance from the government, the Corps builds a levee, for which the government pays 80% and the community 20%, and then turns ownership, and therefore responsibility for maintenance, over to the community. The unfortunate truth is that many communities do not properly maintain the levees, which weakens them. This was the case with many of the levees that breached in New Orleans.Virginia Ryan (talk) 16:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Some good points, except for that in New Orleans maintanance was not a factor in the great levee disaster of 2005, but rather bad design, as multiple studies have shown. See 2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans. -- Infrogmation (talk) 18:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Merged
On both sides of the Atlantic dikes and levees are build to keep the people behind it safe. As it seems its just two names for the same thing. The easy alternative - a neutral title - is not available. Continuously watching two articles to ensure coherence does not provide a long term perspective. Since the history of both terms is also covered, the title does not really matter - and the winner is: levee.Inwind (talk) 20:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

 * A dyke is essentially a different thing. There are dykes that are built to ensure that water is maintained at a raised level while there is no consideration of keeping the low lying area safe.. A dyke can raise water level by as much as only a meter. This current article about the notion of a levee is at odds with the perception that I have of a dyke. A dyke is not only made of ground and the notion that the ditch dug to create a dyke is also part of the dyke is completely foreign to me. You have to appreciate that not all types of earth are suitable for dykes. When you have a dyke there are many consideration on how such a dyke is to be maintained. A modern dyke in the Netherlands is likely to have a layer of stone to prevent shear?.

 * The article is also lacking in that it does not explain how dykes break. The proccess of water saturation and nl:kwel are essential in understanding dykes and levees. Occurrences of flooding should not be part of this article. It is not relevant to the understanding of the subject. GerardM (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

A dyke is used to regulate water levels
A dyke is not necessarily to prevent flooding. There are also dykes that keep water within the confines of a dyke. So while many dykes exist ony for flood control, it is not so by definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GerardM (talk • contribs) at 06:06, 1 March 2009

The dyke and ditch combination
When the waterlevel is higher then the landlevel, water will seep through to the other side. This water needs to be drained because otherwise it will undermine the dyke. Particularly in the case of an emergency, you want to have access along the length of a dyke. It is for this reason that ditches ensure dry ground. It is said that in Dutch the dyke and the ditch are considered to be the same. I would like to see proof of that in Dutch. I doubt this very much. GerardM (talk) 00:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Strengthening dykes with trees
If you want to have sound dykes, trees are your worst enemy. They effectively undermine the construction of a dyke. It is for this reason that sheep are kept on dykes.. "four golden legs and a golden mouth" They keep the grass close cropped and they press the ground together. They eat all the tree shoots. GerardM (talk) 00:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

 * All trees on levees are to be cut.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 05:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It's spelled "dike," not "dyke"
Just FYI. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 03:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Dyke is an alternate spelling. Nothing wrong with that. GerardM (talk) 05:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Artificial Levees - History
This section states the following:

Levees were first constructed in the Indus Valley Civilization (in Pakistan and North India from circa 2600 BC) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended. [3]

Later on, however, it states:

However others point to evidence of large scale water-control earthen works such as canals and/or levees dating from before King Scorpion in Predynastic Egypt during which governance was far less centralized.

Since predynastic egypt predates 2600 B.C., these two statements are mutually exclusive. Which one is it? Grokmoo (talk) 19:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Actually, we also have this statement in the "History" section:

 * The inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization built the first dikes in the world around the 1st millennium BCE.[5] This was the same period when the dockyard at Lothal was in operation.[5] The use of dykes became known from then onwards.[5]

 * Grokmoo (talk) 19:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I am quite certain that dikes were constructed in Egypt and Mesopotamia far before the Harappans/IVC did. I'll find a source. NJMauthor (talk) 03:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Alright, here we go:

Many of the oldest Sumerian words refer to dikes and channels (http://www.sumerian.org/prot-sum.htm) and your basic non-compound words like eg appeared, at the extreme latest, in the 3000's BCE.

NJMauthor (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge from Bunding
I see that an editor has merged the Bunding article into here, without discussion. Any thoughts? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Agreed. There were already established requests suggesting that this 'Levee' article be split because of possible multiple meanings already present, so adding another meaning into here seems the wrong direction. I'm reverting both 'Levee' and the earlier 'Bunding' article to their previous states.  The editor is welcome, and invited, to open a discussion about merging. Feline Hymnic (talk) 19:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

 * It were nice if you undid only merge, instead you reverted all my edits. Military earthworks i have changed redirected already. Asided m plane (talk) 10:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Oppose merge. Levee is the geography of natural riverine features (sometimes with human assistance), bunding is very often small-scale civil engineering or facilities management. When bunds are a notable topic in sizes down to 210 litres, they don't sit easily in an article on the Mississippi delta. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Oppose merge. As per Andy Dingley. Levees are primarily about pre-existing natural rivers etc.; by contrast bunds are about any sort of liquid in newly-generated tanks. These are two separate topics, albeit sharing some commonality, for which a 'seealso' tag from each to the other might be appropriate. Feline Hymnic (talk) 18:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Levee, levy and British variations
Re this removal of "levy" as a claimed British variant spelling.

Levees are admittedly rare in the UK, although there's a good example of a constructed raised levee alongside the Gloucestershire side of the Severn estuary, around the Oldbury area.

The etymology of the word "levee" stems (according to the OED) from a French loanword "levée" of 1770 related to the Mississippi and the then-French territory. This was anglicized to "levee" and appears first in American English, simply not being required in British English for some considerable period. It is however, now established and well understood.

"Levy" (in this sense) is only noted by the OED in passing, as a cite from the 1883 ''Encyc. American'' (NB, American, not British) as a commonly used alternative spelling, but still not a recognized one. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:36, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

 * There are two probably somewhat different points here:

 * 1) The use of the word "levee" in Britain is, I think, very rare. The nearest most of us come to it is hearing news reports from the USA. (Analogous to (US) sidewalk and (UK) pavement; or (US) car hood and (UK) car bonnet. Oscar Wilde: "Two nations divided by a common language".) The common phrase here is "river bank". The emerging question seems to be: Is there any significant difference between a (US) "levee" and a (UK) "river bank"? If they are the same then the current "River bank" WP entity, currently a redirect to Bank (geography) should probably redirect to "Levee".  But if there is a significant difference, then the "Levee" Wikipedia article ought to explain it.
 * If, as I believe, "levee" is rare in the UK, then the claimed "levy" spelling for that particular usage (river containment etc.) is an order of magnitude rarer still.
 * I suggest we concentrate on the former question (US levee vs UK river-bank), and not be distracted by the latter ("...y" spelling variant).
 * Feline Hymnic (talk) 21:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

 * "Levee" in British English is uncommon, but not rare. Owing to the smaller scale of British geography there are fewer levees in existence, but when it's necessary to discuss them, this is the word used. There's no other word used for this specific feature, there's no alternative spelling of it. Nor is "levy" isn't credible as an alternative: it would be several orders of magnitude less common and it appears to be an Americanism, if anything.
 * River banks aren't levees. Levees might be a form of river bank, but they're only one narrow and specific form. Certainly not a good topic for merging or redirection. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:48, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. What, then, is the difference between a river-bank and a levee? I (as a Brit!) have the gut feeling that a river-bank is basically natural with human enhancement whereas a levee has a much higher proportion (majority? entirely?) of the "human enhancement" factor. Is that right, nearly right, not really right, totally wrong? (And the answer of course, should form part of some Wikipedia article!) Feline Hymnic (talk) 00:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

 * That rather suggests we need to improve the article intro then!
 * A levee, as the French origin suggests, is a river bank that has been artificially raised to resist flooding, such that the bank forms a ridge higher than the surrounding land.
 * It's arguable (I may be wrong here, I'm not a hydrologist) that levees (ie the raised bank) might also be formed naturally by deposition on banks. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * All levees are river banks, but not all river banks are levees. To me, the defining feature of a levee is that it is raised higher than both the bankful level of the river on one side, and also the flood plain on the other side - regardless of whether it's natural or artificial. Natural levees are a consequence of inundation of the floodplain by flooding rivers with high suspended sediment load, i.e., meandering, lowland rivers; the flow velocity falls as the depth falls, so the coarsest of the suspended sediment drops out immediately adjacent to the river, and this builds the levee over time and with many flood events. This will tend to reduce the likelihood of future floodplain inundation (and can result in crevasse splays where the levee breaches if and when it does happen). FWIW, I'm British, and have done plenty of stuff on rivers, and have never seen it spelled anything other than "levee". The word "levy", AFAIK, refers only to a tax! If it can be used interchangeably, that's definitely archaic usage. DanHobley (talk) 04:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Bund alarm
Just a brief note, before you decide on any merges... FWIW, I stumbled on the Bunding article, because I was looking for a definition of what constitutes a Bund Alarm (which, in turn, led me to this discussion). When searching for "Bund alarm" in a well known search engine, the first 10 results were all commecial products. They are all for monitoring the amount of oil in an oil tank (including fuel in a fuel tank). TheAMmollusc (talk) 11:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

EWN
Hi!

In Revision as of 01:20, 31 August 2008 User:77.248.55.53 added some text including "(EWN)" at the end of one paragraph. Looks like it might be a ref of some sort but a cursory google didn't find anything.

Any reason not to remove it?

Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 21:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Debris flows
Would be good if the article could also refer to the natural levees built up around debris flows. I'll do this if and when I get the time, but anyone else feel free in the meantime! DanHobley (talk) 03:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Geology
I've added this article to WP Geology. This should induce some sedimentologists to head over and run a critical eye over the natural levees section, which needs some TLC. Hope that's OK with all. DanHobley (talk) ??:??, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Significant rewrite for clarity on natural levees now complete. All info should still be there. DanHobley (talk) 03:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved Mike Cline (talk) 18:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

– Looking over the many threads on Talk:Levee there appears to be a lot of confusion over the primary use of "levee". Dyke's first disamb. item reads, A natural or artificial slope or wall to regulate water levels, called levee in American English. I do not identify from the discussions here that there is clear support for the term, and even levee itself states, ...is used in American English (notably in the Midwest and Deep South) which clearly suggests limited usage, in one particular country, as well as its origin, France. As to why Dyke is disambiguated, when there is clear evidence that it is a very WP:COMMONNAME. Per http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dike: "Origin: before 900; Middle English  dik ( e ), Old English  dīc < Old Norse  dīki; akin to ditch", I can't understand why we're using a word claiming to be "American English" (the French being levée, but America doesn't tend to use diacritics), over the word that originated more than 1100 years ago, and is used in many countries, not just a limited part of one. Per WP:PRIMARYUSAGE, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:UNDUE (because "levee" does not appear to represent a widely known word to describe an embankment), I request that this page be moved to Dyke and all those items currently on that page to a new Dyke (disambiguation). Levee itself should then be redirected to dyke, to complete the circle.  Ma ®© usBr iti sh {chat} 12:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)  Ma ®© usBr iti sh {chat} 12:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Levee → Dyke
 * Dyke → Dyke (disambiguation)

 * Oppose Dykes are primarily ditches, not raised barriers. They are added to low-lying land to drain it. As the drainage function of a dyke also requires containment, and a safeguard against intermittent flooding, then they also require a dyke wall that is a raised structure and so starts to overlap with levee. "Dyke wall" is commonly shortened to "dyke" alone, but it doesn't remove the existence of the constructed dyke alongside. Dykes (as dyke walls) alongside natural rivers are pretty rare, as the term is almost never used in that context.
 * This article is about raised structures specifically, particularly where these are added as flood defences to natural watercourses. These are levees more than dykes, even though I recognise there is some overlap. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That being the case, then the Dyke disambig description is wrong and should not point to levee as a synonymous word, and the dyke etymology section in levee should not be present. Meaning dyke needs its own defining article, given the geological differences you mention, and your comments probably need sourcing to prove that levees and dykes do actually differ in appearance and name, in support of your objection. Cheers,  Ma ®© usBr iti sh {chat} 16:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a quick comment that the meaning of the word dike appears to have changed over time and in the 15th century (etymology here) no longer meant ditch therefore seems (now) to be (almost?) a synonym of levee. EdwardLane (talk) 09:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Strong oppose The primary usage of "Dyke" in America, IMO and per Wikipedia on 15 July 2003, is Dyke (slang). The reason we use the French-origin word is that Louisiana was first settled by the French, and New Orleans is the most well-known place in America that has them, being at the end of the continent's most important river, and made infamous by Hurricane Katrina.  We also avoid conflict between British and American English (Dyke vs. Dike).  Wbm1058 (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Opinion and historical Wiki disambig pages hardly constitute as WP:RS. And slang, in this form, is generally used by homophobic people, the article itself notes it as derogatory. The point being, it has a "(slang)" identifier, whereas "Dyke" does not, yet it has a more primary geological meaning over American (?) sexuality insults. Louisiana was settled in the 1700s, still 800+ years after the word Dyke originated – and one U.S. state hardly represents worldwide usage. Brits don't use "dike", "dyke" mostly. Levee is a malformed version of levée, not shared with the wider English-speaking world, who clearly don't recognise it. It appears more colloquial than broadly used, as the French word doesn't even relate to water features, it simply means "to rise". Cheers,  Ma ®© usBr iti sh {chat} 16:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Oppose - Levee is the term used by both geographers and geologists for these features. They occur not only beside river channels, but also at the side of submarine channel complexes on the continental slope and abyssal plain - in both depositional environments they are recognised in ancient sedimentary rocks and 'dyke' would make no sense. Mikenorton (talk) 20:35, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment while the American spelling "levee" is malformed, levée with an accent usually refers to a military levée en masse or civilian uprising. There are so many terms in Dyke (disambiguation) that this can't truly claim to be primary, and I honestly think more searches are going to be heading for the slang term than river engineering or Dike (geology). In a British encyclopedia you'd find Dyke (embankment) or similar, since levee isn't well known outside America. Be interesting to confirm the form in Indian English as the most populated form of the language worldwide. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Oppose it is spelled "dike" with an "i", not a "y". Your own nomination rationale shows that. "dyke"s are lesbians per others already pointing that out. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 03:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it's a variation as indicated at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dyke - just as "gay" can still mean "happy", words do have dual meanings. "Fag" means "cigarette" in the UK, "faggot" is a Scottish meatball, "queer" means "weird", "puff" means "brief emission of air, smoke or vapour", "pansy" is a flower, "Dick" is a nickname for "Richard", "prick" means to be punctured, "slag" is a metal impurity, an "ass" is a donkey, a "cock" is a bird, "bitch" is a female dog, and so on..and "Dyke" is a water feature, whatever its form. A slang word is, by its own definition, an informal word, and given that Wiki is an encyclopedia, should not be listing street-talk as chief alongside a whole range of other homophobic slurs when geographical and natural things exist which should have precedent. Listing things with a "(slang)" identifier is one thing.. rewriting the dictionary to primarily support American (or any other) irreverences, except where words are always considered "crude" (F-word, C-word) is another.  Ma ®© usBr iti sh {chat} 08:24, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As is not a disambiguation page, I still don't see your point in choosing "dyke", since your nomination links to the dictionary entry for "dike". -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 10:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Because "dyke" is the most commonly used variant - doesn't matter whether it links to dike or dyke, it's for you to read the definition and etymology, not nit-pick at the spelling. Only the dike page has mention of it being a pre-900s word. Give that may words have changed spelling over the past 1000+ years, perhaps a result of the Great Vowel Shift, there may be reasons why dyke is more commonly used.  Ma ®© usBr iti sh {chat} 10:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've not seen it spelled that way except on Wikipedia. A further knock against that spelling variant are the objections from above that it means lesbian. You'll have to show it is the most commonly used spelling, and that those usages are not about lesbians. Considering those objections from the above users, it seems "dike" is the better spelling. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 05:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Strong oppose. The technical (natural, landform) usage here is fundamentally NOT compatible in any way with using the word dyke (or indeed dike). I've never seen the terms levee and dyke used interchangeably in sedimentological/geomorphological literature; levee is right. I suspect "dyke" may apply only to manmade levees...? DanHobley (talk) 22:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment 2 - looking at the history this page seems to be the product of a not totally convincing merge. If Levee (geology) and Levee (civil engineering) are 2 different things (are they?) then you wouldn't normally put a natural feature and a manmade object in the same article. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, but that's not the proposed change here. As long as Levee (geology) or some equivalent remains, I have no strong opinion on the remainder. But I suspect it will just degenerate into a regional naming convention spat. Do we really want that? DanHobley (talk) 01:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Comment I don't know quite why I stumbled on this page, but for what it is worth I thought I'd mention my (UK) perceptions of the words Dike, dyke, levee, levy, and embankment.

 * I remember seeing the word Levee for the first time in my GCSE geography lessons, it was not the common word I would use even now but I could label it on a diagram (along with oxbow lake). I think I would use 'raised the level of the river bank', or say something like look at the recent work they have done on flood defense most of the time.

 * On top of that there is a road near me called 'the embankment' which runs along side the river, so that embankment would also work for me. But I can see that 'embankment' gets mixed in with 'railway embankment' or similar things.

 * The word Dike reminds me of two things, Offa's Dike and the story of the dutch boy who put his finger in the dike (sic) to stop the sea breaking through. So I don't really think of dikes as related to river embankments.

 * The words dyke and levy are to me very strongly associated with dyke (slang) and raising taxes - and seemed in my head to have no link in my vocabulary with dikes or levees. but I do see that Offa's Dyke rather than dike is the correct spelling (oops - it seems internal political correctness reconfigured how I spelled the word in my head).

 * All in all I think merging Dike into Levee is/was probably not quite right (dikes may not quite be a synonym of levee) - one seems in my head to be an earthwork to keep out water/people, the other seems to keep the river contained at an elevated (e 'levee' ted) level. But I can see that Levee is clearly a technical term. So the questions for the merge remain 'are all dikes levees?' and 'are all levees dikes?' I think Offa's Dyke says no to the first one - and I gather there are technical 'levees' that are not dikes so that would I suppose be oppose. Would moving the article to a new name of 'dikes and levees' or something similar be sensible ? EdwardLane (talk) 09:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Beautiful comment EdwardLane --Chris.urs-o (talk) 14:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Major overhaul
If there are no objections i'm going to over haul this article if no one objects in a day i will go ahead with my changes to the lead section and rewrite multiple sections. --Jeffrd10 (talk) 16:36, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation
, you are incorrect. Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com (click show IPA), Oxford Dictionaries.com, and Collins Dictionary all show.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please 18:45, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

tagging
I am tagging core articles with really short leads for Take the lead!. I have no idea about the fragment and apologise for inadvertently reinserting it, but am trying to highlight broad articles for the competition. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:14, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So just what is wrong with the existing lead? What it missing from it?  Andy Dingley (talk) 13:25, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Standard way to construct is one line from each section or para. Looking at it I'd say earliest use and largest (highest and/or longest) levees worth a mention. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:34, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

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Lava leeves
Levees also form in lava flows: https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/k-lauea-volcano-lava-levees. Volcanoguy 04:11, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Levee


text:
John Stears

John Stears (25 August 1934 – 28 April 1999), known as the "Dean of Special Effects", was a British special effects expert. He created James Bond's lethal Aston Martin DB5, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, the Death Star and the robots R2-D2 and C-3PO, as well as a host of other famous movie gadgets and special effects.

Life and family
Stears was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex (now part of Greater London) on 25 August 1934 and grew up in nearby Ickenham. Stears studied at Harrow College of Art and Southall Technical School before working as a draughtsman with the Air Ministry.

He served as a dispatch rider during his National Service, then joined a firm of architects where he was able to utilise his passion for model-making by constructing scale models of building projects for clients.

For most of his life he lived at Welders House in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where he reared cattle and his wife ran the Livny Borzoi Kennels, breeding Borzoi show dogs.

In 1993, he sold his Welders House country estate in Buckinghamshire to the singer Ozzy Osbourne and emigrated to California with his wife Brenda, whom he married in 1960, the couple had two children.

Film career
Stears' effects featured in the first eight James Bond films, winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1965 for Thunderball, and sharing another Academy Award in 1977 for Star Wars.

He created some of the most famous scenes in the movies. He blew up the villain's Jamaican hideout at the end of Dr. No (1962), and for Goldfinger (1964), he created Agent 007's Aston Martin DB5, featuring bullet-proof windows, revolving licence plates, forward-firing machine guns, a rear oil-slick dispenser and a passenger-side ejector seat.

He also created an avalanche for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and built flying cars for the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).

Stears grew disenchanted with the Bond franchise, and vowed never to do another one. He complained that the "team spirit" had gone. Stears expressed great regret that Kevin McClory could not get his rival Bond film, Warhead, into production, as Stears wanted to work on that film.

In 1976, Stears received a telephone call from George Lucas, who had been a great admirer of the Bond films, who wanted to know if he was interested in creating mechanical and electrical effects for a film that he had written, Star Wars. Stears accepted the offer. Stears had something in common with Alec Guinness and John Williams; he had won an Academy Award before working on Star Wars. For Star Wars (1977), Stears created the robots R2-D2 and C-3PO, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, and the Death Star. Stears was also credited, along with John Dykstra, for the original film's climactic aerial dogfight. Other well known mechanical effects Stears orchestrated included the garbage compacter, making an X-wing fighter fly and the Jawa's sandcrawler.

In 1978, producer Harry Saltzman hired Stears to direct the "shrunken man" epic film The Micronauts. The troubled project had been in pre-production for many years and saw many directors come and go; ultimately the film never made it into production.

Awards

John Stears is notably one of only a few people to ever win an Academy Award for a James Bond film and one of only eight to win an Academy Award for a Star Wars film.

 * 1965 – Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Thunderball
 * 1977 – Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * 1978 – Saturn Award for Best Special Effects for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * 1982 – Saturn Award for Best Special Effects (nomination) for Outland

Selected filmography

 * Call Me Bwana (1963)
 * From Russia with Love (1963)
 * Goldfinger (1964)
 * Court Martial (1965)
 * Thunderball (1965)
 * You Only Live Twice (1967)
 * Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
 * On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
 * Toomorrow (1970)
 * The Pied Piper (1972)
 * Sitting Target (1972)
 * Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1973)
 * O Lucky Man! (1973)
 * The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
 * That Lucky Touch (1975)
 * Sky Riders (1976)
 * Star Wars (1977)
 * The Martian Chronicles (1980)
 * Hopscotch (1980)
 * The Awakening (1980)
 * Outland (1981)
 * Turkey Shoot (1983)
 * Sahara (1983)
 * The Bounty (1984)
 * F/X: Murder by Illusion (1986)
 * Haunted Honeymoon (1986)
 * Miracles (1986)
 * Navy SEALs (1990)
 * Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993)
 * Babylon 5 (1994)
 * The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Death
Stears died on 28 April 1999 in UCLA Medical Center after a stroke. His wife, Brenda, and other family members had wanted the death kept quiet until after services in Pacific Palisades in May and in London. The family announced his death in June of that same year. Stears owned homes in Pacific Palisades and in Beaconsfield, England, where he and his wife raised cattle and show dogs.

title: John Stears


text: User talk:131.44.121.252

title: User talk:131.44.121.252


text:
Orbital hybridisation

In chemistry, orbital hybridisation (or hybridization) is the concept of mixing atomic orbitals to form new hybrid orbitals (with different energies, shapes, etc., than the component atomic orbitals) suitable for the pairing of electrons to form chemical bonds in valence bond theory. For example, in a carbon atom which forms four single bonds, the valence-shell s orbital combines with three valence-shell p orbitals to form four equivalent sp3 mixtures in a tetrahedral arrangement around the carbon to bond to four different atoms. Hybrid orbitals are useful in the explanation of molecular geometry and atomic bonding properties and are symmetrically disposed in space. Usually hybrid orbitals are formed by mixing atomic orbitals of comparable energies.

History and uses
Chemist Linus Pauling first developed the hybridisation theory in 1931 to explain the structure of simple molecules such as methane (CH4) using atomic orbitals. Pauling pointed out that a carbon atom forms four bonds by using one s and three p orbitals, so that "it might be inferred" that a carbon atom would form three bonds at right angles (using p orbitals) and a fourth weaker bond using the s orbital in some arbitrary direction. In reality, methane has four C-H bonds of equivalent strength. The angle between any two bonds is the tetrahedral bond angle of 109°28' (around 109.5°). Pauling supposed that in the presence of four hydrogen atoms, the s and p orbitals form four equivalent combinations which he called hybrid orbitals. Each hybrid is denoted sp3 to indicate its composition, and is directed along one of the four C-H bonds. This concept was developed for such simple chemical systems, but the approach was later applied more widely, and today it is considered an effective heuristic for rationalizing the structures of organic compounds. It gives a simple orbital picture equivalent to Lewis structures.

Hybridisation theory is an integral part of organic chemistry, one of the most compelling examples being Baldwin's rules. For drawing reaction mechanisms sometimes a classical bonding picture is needed with two atoms sharing two electrons. Hybridisation theory explains bonding in alkenes and methane. The amount of p character or s character, which is decided mainly by orbital hybridisation, can be used to reliably predict molecular properties such as acidity or basicity.

Overview
Orbitals are a model representation of the behavior of electrons within molecules. In the case of simple hybridization, this approximation is based on atomic orbitals, similar to those obtained for the hydrogen atom, the only neutral atom for which the Schrödinger equation can be solved exactly. In heavier atoms, such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, the atomic orbitals used are the 2s and 2p orbitals, similar to excited state orbitals for hydrogen.

Hybrid orbitals are assumed to be mixtures of atomic orbitals, superimposed on each other in various proportions. For example, in methane, the C hybrid orbital which forms each carbon–hydrogen bond consists of 25% s character and 75% p character and is thus described as sp3 (read as s-p-three) hybridised. Quantum mechanics describes this hybrid as an sp3 wavefunction of the form $$N(s + \sqrt 3 p\sigma)$$, where N is a normalisation constant (here 1/2) and pσ is a p orbital directed along the C-H axis to form a sigma bond. The ratio of coefficients (denoted λ in general) is $\color{blue}\sqrt 3$ in this example. Since the electron density associated with an orbital is proportional to the square of the wavefunction, the ratio of p-character to s-character is λ2 = 3. The p character or the weight of the p component is N2λ2 = 3/4.

sp3

Hybridisation describes the bonding of atoms from an atom's point of view. For a tetrahedrally coordinated carbon (e.g., methane CH4), the carbon should have 4 orbitals directed towards the 4 hydrogen atoms.

Carbon's ground state configuration is 1s2 2s2 2p2 or more easily read:

This diagram suggests that the carbon atom could use its two singly occupied p-type orbitals to form two covalent bonds with two hydrogen atoms in a methylene (CH2) molecule, with a hypothetical bond angle of 90° corresponding to the angle between two p orbitals on the same atom. However the true H-C-H angle in singlet methylene is about 102° which implies the presence of some orbital hybridisation.

The carbon atom can also bond to four hydrogen atoms in methane by an excitation (or promotion) of an electron from the doubly occupied 2s orbital to the empty 2p orbital, producing four singly occupied orbitals.

The energy released by the formation of two additional bonds more than compensates for the excitation energy required, energetically favoring the formation of four C-H bonds.

Quantum mechanically, the lowest energy is obtained if the four bonds are equivalent, which requires that they are formed from equivalent orbitals on the carbon. A set of four equivalent orbitals can be obtained that are linear combinations of the valence-shell (core orbitals are almost never involved in bonding) s and p wave functions, which are the four sp3 hybrids.

In CH4, four sp3 hybrid orbitals are overlapped by hydrogen 1s orbitals, yielding four σ (sigma) bonds (that is, four single covalent bonds) of equal length and strength.

The following : translates into :

sp2

Other carbon compounds and other molecules may be explained in a similar way. For example, ethene (C2H4) has a double bond between the carbons.

For this molecule, carbon sp2 hybridises, because one π (pi) bond is required for the double bond between the carbons and only three σ bonds are formed per carbon atom. In sp2 hybridisation the 2s orbital is mixed with only two of the three available 2p orbitals, usually denoted 2px and 2py. The third 2p orbital (2pz) remains unhybridised.

forming a total of three sp2 orbitals with one remaining p orbital. In ethene, the two carbon atoms form a σ bond by overlapping one sp2 orbital from each carbon atom. The π bond between the carbon atoms perpendicular to the molecular plane is formed by 2p–2p overlap. Each carbon atom forms covalent C–H bonds with two hydrogens by s–sp2 overlap, all with 120° bond angles. The hydrogen–carbon bonds are all of equal strength and length, in agreement with experimental data.

sp

The chemical bonding in compounds such as alkynes with triple bonds is explained by sp hybridization. In this model, the 2s orbital is mixed with only one of the three p orbitals,

resulting in two sp orbitals and two remaining p orbitals. The chemical bonding in acetylene (ethyne) (C2H2) consists of sp–sp overlap between the two carbon atoms forming a σ bond and two additional π bonds formed by p–p overlap. Each carbon also bonds to hydrogen in a σ s–sp overlap at 180° angles.

Hybridisation and molecule shape

Hybridisation helps to explain molecule shape, since the angles between bonds are approximately equal to the angles between hybrid orbitals. This is in contrast to valence shell electron-pair repulsion (VSEPR) theory, which can be used to predict molecular geometry based on empirical rules rather than on valence-bond or orbital theories.

spx hybridisation
As the valence orbitals of main group elements are the one s and three p orbitals with the corresponding octet rule, spx hybridization is used to model the shape of these molecules.

spxdy hybridisation
As the valence orbitals of transition metals are the five d, one s and three p orbitals with the corresponding 18-electron rule, spxdy hybridisation is used to model the shape of these molecules. These molecules tend to have multiple shapes corresponding to the same hybridization due to the different d-orbitals involved. A square planar complex has one unoccupied p-orbital and hence has 16 valence electrons.

sdx hybridisation
In certain transition metal complexes with a low d electron count, the p-orbitals are unoccupied and sdx hybridisation is used to model the shape of these molecules.

Octet expansion
In some general chemistry textbooks, hybridization is presented for main group coordination number 5 and above using an "expanded octet" scheme with d-orbitals first proposed by Pauling. However, such a scheme is now considered to be incorrect in light of computational chemistry calculations.

In 1990, Eric Alfred Magnusson of the University of New South Wales published a paper definitively excluding the role of d-orbital hybridisation in bonding in hypervalent compounds of second-row (period 3) elements, ending a point of contention and confusion. Part of the confusion originates from the fact that d-functions are essential in the basis sets used to describe these compounds (or else unreasonably high energies and distorted geometries result). Also, the contribution of the d-function to the molecular wavefunction is large. These facts were incorrectly interpreted to mean that d-orbitals must be involved in bonding.

Resonance
In light of computational chemistry, a better treatment would be to invoke sigma bond resonance in addition to hybridisation, which implies that each resonance structure has its own hybridisation scheme. All resonance structures must obey the octet rule.

Hybridisation in computational VB theory
While the simple model of orbital hybridisation is commonly used to explain molecular shape, hybridisation is used differently when computed in modern valence bond programs. Specifically, hybridisation is not determined a priori but is instead variationally optimized to find the lowest energy solution and then reported. This means that all artificial constraints, specifically two constraints, on orbital hybridisation are lifted: This means that in practice, hybrid orbitals do not conform to the simple ideas commonly taught and thus in scientific computational papers are simply referred to as spx, spxdy or sdx hybrids to express their nature instead of more specific integer values.
 * that hybridisation is restricted to integer values (isovalent hybridisation)
 * that hybrid orbitals are orthogonal to one another (hybridisation defects)

Isovalent hybridisation
Although ideal hybrid orbitals can be useful, in reality, most bonds require orbitals of intermediate character. This requires an extension to include flexible weightings of atomic orbitals of each type (s, p, d) and allows for a quantitative depiction of the bond formation when the molecular geometry deviates from ideal bond angles. The amount of p-character is not restricted to integer values; i.e., hybridizations like sp2.5 are also readily described.

The hybridization of bond orbitals is determined by Bent's rule: "Atomic character concentrates in orbitals directed towards electropositive substituents".

For molecules with lone pairs, the bonding orbitals are isovalent spx hybrids. For example, the two bond-forming hybrid orbitals of oxygen in water can be described as sp4.0 to give the interorbital angle of 104.5°. This means that they have 20% s character and 80% p character and does not imply that a hybrid orbital is formed from one s and four p orbitals on oxygen since the 2p subshell of oxygen only contains three p orbitals.

Hybridisation defects
Hybridisation of s and p orbitals to form effective spx hybrids requires that they have comparable radial extent. While 2p orbitals are on average less than 10% larger than 2s, in part attributable to the lack of a radial node in 2p orbitals, 3p orbitals which have one radial node, exceed the 3s orbitals by 20–33%. The difference in extent of s and p orbitals increases further down a group. The hybridisation of atoms in chemical bonds can be analysed by considering localised molecular orbitals, for example using natural localised molecular orbitals in a natural bond orbital (NBO) scheme. In methane, CH4, the calculated p/s ratio is approximately 3 consistent with "ideal" sp3 hybridisation, whereas for silane, SiH4, the p/s ratio is closer to 2. A similar trend is seen for the other 2p elements. Substitution of fluorine for hydrogen further decreases the p/s ratio. The 2p elements exhibit near ideal hybridisation with orthogonal hybrid orbitals. For heavier p block elements this assumption of orthogonality cannot be justified. These deviations from the ideal hybridisation were termed hybridisation defects by Kutzelnigg.

However, computational VB groups such as Gerratt, Cooper and Raimondi (SCVB) as well as Shaik and Hiberty (VBSCF) go a step further to argue that even for model molecules such as methane, ethylene and acetylene, the hybrid orbitals are already defective and nonorthogonal, with hybridisations such as sp1.76 instead of sp3 for methane.

Photoelectron spectra
One misconception concerning orbital hybridization is that it incorrectly predicts the ultraviolet photoelectron spectra of many molecules. While this is true if Koopmans' theorem is applied to localized hybrids, quantum mechanics requires that the (in this case ionized) wavefunction obey the symmetry of the molecule which implies resonance in valence bond theory. For example, in methane, the ionised states (CH4+) can be constructed out of four resonance structures attributing the ejected electron to each of the four sp3 orbitals. A linear combination of these four structures, conserving the number of structures, leads to a triply degenerate T2 state and an A1 state. The difference in energy between each ionized state and the ground state would be ionization energy, which yields two values in agreement with experimental results.

Localized vs canonical molecular orbitals
Bonding orbitals formed from hybrid atomic orbitals may be considered as localized molecular orbitals, which can be formed from the delocalized orbitals of molecular orbital theory by an appropriate mathematical transformation. For molecules in the ground state, this transformation of the orbitals leaves the total many-electron wave function unchanged. The hybrid orbital description of the ground state is, therefore equivalent to the delocalized orbital description for ground state total energy and electron density, as well as the molecular geometry that corresponds to the minimum total energy value.

Two localized representations
Molecules with multiple bonds or multiple lone pairs can have orbitals represented in terms of sigma and pi symmetry or equivalent orbitals. Different valence bond methods use either of the two representations, which have mathematically equivalent total many-electron wave functions and are related by a unitary transformation of the set of occupied molecular orbitals.

For multiple bonds, the sigma-pi representation is the predominant one compared to the equivalent orbital (bent bond) representation. In contrast, for multiple lone pairs, most textbooks use the equivalent orbital representation. However, the sigma-pi representation is also used, such as by Weinhold and Landis within the context of natural bond orbitals, a localized orbital theory containing modernized analogs of classical (valence bond/Lewis structure) bonding pairs and lone pairs. For the hydrogen fluoride molecule, for example, two F lone pairs are essentially unhybridized p orbitals, while the other is an spx hybrid orbital. An analogous consideration applies to water (one O lone pair is in a pure p orbital, another is in an spx hybrid orbital).

title: Orbital hybridisation


text: User talk:65.185.134.24

title: User talk:65.185.134.24


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Yvonne Minton

Yvonne Fay Minton CBE (born 4 December 1938) is an Australian-born but mostly British-resident opera singer. She is variously billed as a soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto.

A native of Sydney, she studied voice while on a scholarship at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music. She won the £1000 Shell Aria, run in conjunction with the 1960 National Eisteddfod, Canberra. By this stage she had become one of the country's leading contraltos, often appearing on radio and television and with the Sydney and Queensland orchestras.

Minton left Australia in 1961 to pursue her studies in London. The same year, she won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize for the best contralto at the International Vocal Competition 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Her first major part in England was as Maggie Dempster in the premiere of Nicholas Maw's One Man Show. She sang the role of Clotilde on the 1965 Decca recording of Bellini's Norma.

Shortly thereafter, she became a regular member of the company of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, appearing in such roles as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana. She created the role of Thea in Tippett's The Knot Garden (1970) and appeared at the Cologne Opera from 1969 (début as Sesto in La clemenza di Tito). She has since appeared with most of the major English orchestras and in opera houses throughout Europe and the United States. She has also appeared at Bayreuth (Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde) and the Salzburg Festival 1978 (Octavian). In 1973, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Octavian in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. She sang the role of Countess Geschwitz in Lulu in Paris in 1979. She has also made many concert appearances, notably with Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Her recordings include Parsifal (Armin Jordan), Der Rosenkavalier (Georg Solti), The Marriage of Figaro (Colin Davis), Bach's Mass in B minor (Karl Münchinger), Rossini's Stabat Mater (István Kertész), Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, Mahler's The Song of the Earth, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (all with Solti), Tristan und Isolde (Leonard Bernstein), and Béatrice et Bénédict (Daniel Barenboim).

In the New Year Honours 1980, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music.

title: Yvonne Minton


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Per Fine Ounce

Per Fine Ounce is the title of an unpublished novel by Geoffrey Jenkins featuring Ian Fleming's James Bond. It was completed c.1966 and is considered a "lost" novel by fans of James Bond because it was actually commissioned by Glidrose Productions, the official publishers of James Bond. It was rejected for publication, however, missing the opportunity to become the first continuation James Bond novel. The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½, a novel written by the pseudonymous R. D. Mascott, was later published in 1967 featuring James Bond's nephew; Colonel Sun written by Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym Robert Markham was published in 1968 as the first adult continuation novel following Ian Fleming's The Man with the Golden Gun (1965).

History
Geoffrey Jenkins was given a job in the Foreign Department of Kemsley Newspapers, an organisation owned by the London Sunday Times, by Viscount Kemsley. There he worked with Ian Fleming, who was the Foreign Manager of the department, and the two men became friends. In a letter to John Pearson in 1965 when he was researching his biography on Ian Fleming, The Life of Ian Fleming, Jenkins revealed that in the late 1950s he had discussed the idea of a James Bond novel set in South Africa with Fleming, and even written a synopsis of it, which Fleming had very much liked. Fleming had said he would come to South Africa to research the book, but he died before this happened. Pearson was understandably excited by this revelation, and even more so when he found Jenkins' Bond synopsis in Fleming's papers.

At the same time, Glidrose were considering the idea of asking other authors to continue writing James Bond novels, a notion that Fleming's wife, Ann, was against, but his brother, Peter Fleming, who at the time was Glidrose's director, favoured. In November 1965, Jenkins met with Harry Saltzman, co-producer of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1974, and Charles Tyrell from Glidrose to discuss the possibility of his making his South African synopsis into the first James Bond "continuation" novel. Negotiations were protracted, but Jenkins was formally granted permission to write the book on May 12, 1966; a contract was drawn up on August 24, 1966, which stated that Jenkins would be entitled to a percentage of profits in any film made from the novel, but not from any related merchandise that might come about.

Not much is known of the plot for Per Fine Ounce. The reference work The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson indicates that it was based upon a story Jenkins claimed he and Fleming had worked on around 1957, and that the storyline was set in South Africa and dealt with diamond smugglers and a spy ring and bore some resemblance to Fleming's Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever as well as his non-Bond work, The Diamond Smugglers. However, in an interview with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang magazine published in 2005, Peter Janson-Smith, Fleming's former literary agent and former chairman of Glidrose, claimed that he believed the story may have been about gold. This makes more sense, as the title derives from the line "per fine Troy ounce" or a variation of. A fine ounce is a Troy ounce of not quite pure gold. Jenkins' synopsis found by John Pearson in Fleming's papers featured gold bicycle chains, baobab tree coffins and the magical Lake Fundudzi—presumably, Jenkins used some or all of these elements in the book itself. Four draft pages of the manuscript were discovered in 2005, in which we learn that the Double-O Section has been closed down and James Bond defies M on a matter of principle, resigning from MI6 to pursue his mission in South Africa alone.

Despite such promising-sounding material, and the fact that Jenkins was a best-selling thriller writer in the Fleming mould, had been a friend and colleague of Fleming's and had apparently had his blessing and input for the project, Glidrose rejected Jenkins' submitted manuscript. Peter Janson-Smith later recalled that he thought it was badly written, although he admitted that Glidrose may have been "stricter in those days."

A copy of the manuscript is rumoured to exist in the archives of Ian Fleming Publications (renamed from Glidrose in 1998); however, Peter Janson-Smith has said that he doesn't believe Ian Fleming Publications still holds a copy and that the most likely scenario is that the manuscript was returned for legal reasons (so as to not be sued in the future for plagiarism if a book with a similar plot is used). Jenkins' contract with Glidrose gave him a licence to reuse the material in the novel in the event of its rejection, with the proviso that he could not use any of Fleming's characters. Jenkins may have done this: his 1973 novel A Cleft Of Stars, while not containing any rogue British secret agents, is set in almost precisely the same area of South Africa, involves diamonds and gold, and has the hero temporarily hiding in a baobab tree.

In 2005, Titan Books published a reprint of a comic strip based upon Colonel Sun. The introduction states that in the mid-1970s Amis lobbied for Eon Productions (producers of the Bond film franchise) to produce a film based upon his book. Reportedly he was told that Saltzman had forbidden that any film be made based on Colonel Sun due to Glidrose refusing to publish Per Fine Ounce a decade earlier.

In 2010, previously unreleased extracts from the "lost" Jenkins manuscript Per Fine Ounce were released exclusively on James Bond website MI6. The extract reveals 007's traditional briefing with "M".

title: Per Fine Ounce


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Dactylioceras

Dactylioceras was a widespread genus of ammonites from the Lower Jurassic period, approximately 180 million years ago (mya).

Etymology
The name Dactylioceras comes from the Greek dactyl, meaning “finger”, and refers to the shell's branching ribs.

Description
Dactylioceras are generally small, averaging 65 mm in diameter. They have a strong, ribbed shell. The ribs are slightly inclined forward, running over the outer edge, and either simple or forking at outer end. Though they eventually died out 180 mya, their style of ribbing was copied by numerous subsequent ammonite genera until the whole group became extinct 66 million years ago with the dinosaurs.

Ecology
Dactylioceras probably lived by scavenging on the sea floor. Mass mortality specimens of Dactylioceras are common, and perhaps suggest that these ammonites may often have died shortly after spawning. The dead shells were probably gently washed up into a shell bank on the margins of the Lower Jurassic seas. Flow tank experiments show that Dactylioceras was probably a slow swimmer.

Distribution
Dactylioceras has been collected from almost every continent, and was one of the most successful ammonite lineages ever. They are abundant throughout Europe, with exceptionally fine specimens found in England and Germany. Like many other ammonites, the genus Dactylioceras is extremely important in biostratigraphy, being a key index fossil for identifying their region of the Jurassic.

Subgenera
Currently, 3 or 4 subgenera are considered to be valid. Number differs on authors opinions.
 * D. (Dactylioceras) Hyatt, 1867 : type species: Ammonites communis Sowerby, 1815
 * D. (Orthodactylites) Buckman, 1926 : type species: Dactylioceras directus Buckman, 1926
 * D. (Iranodactylites) Repin, 2000 : type species: Dactylioceras (Iranodactylites) ketevanae Repin, 2000
 * D. (Eodactylites) Schmidt-Effing, 1972 : type species: Dactylioceras pseudocommune Fucini, 1935 . This subgenus is not recognized by some authors, while some other prefer to maintain it.

Species
Species within the genus Dactylioceras include:

 * D. (O.) aequistriatum Zieten, 1830
 * D. (D.) alpestre Wiedenmayer, 1980
 * D. (D.) amplum Dagis, 1968
 * D. (O.) andaluciensis Jiménes & Rivas, 1991
 * D. (O.) anguiforme Buckman, 1928
 * D. (O.) anguinum Reinecke, 1818
 * D. (D.) annuliferum Simpson, 1855
 * D. (D.) arcus Buckman, 1926
 * D. (D.) athleticum Simpson, 1855
 * D. (D.) attenuatum Simpson, 1855
 * D. (O.) chilense Hillebrandt and Schmidt-Effing, 1981
 * D. (O.) clevelandicum Howarth, 1973
 * D. (D.) commune Sowerby, 1815
 * D. (D.) comptum Dagis, 1968
 * D. (D.) consimile Buckman, 1926
 * D. (D.) crassescens Simpson, 1855
 * D. (O.) crassifactum Simpson, 1855
 * D. (O.) crassiusculosum Buckman, 1912
 * D. (D.) crassiusculum Simpson, 1855
 * D. (D.) crassulum Buckman, 1921
 * D. (D.) crosbeyi Simpson, 1843
 * D. (O.) directum Buckman, 1926
 * D. (O.) ernsti Lehmann, 1968
 * D. (D.) gracile Simpson, 1843
 * D. (O.) helianthoides Yokoyama, 1904
 * D. (O.) hispansum Schmidt-Effing, 1972
 * D. (O.) hoelderi Hillebrandt & Schmidt-Effing, 1981
 * D. (D.) holandrei d'Orbigny, 1845
 * D. (O.) ketevanae Repin, 2000
 * D. (O.) kanense McLearn, 1930
 * D. (I.) ketevanae Repin, 2000
 * D. (D.) laticostatum Bardin et al., 2014
 * D. (O.) marioni Lissajous, 1906
 * D. (E.) mirabile Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) mite Buckman, 1927
 * D. (D.) peloritanum Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) percostatum Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) perplicatum Fucini, 1935
 * D. (E.) polymorphum Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) praepositum Buckman, 1927
 * D. (E.) pseudocommune Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) pseudocrassoides Maubeuge, 1957
 * D. (O.) sapunovi Repin, 2000
 * D. (O.) semiannulatum Howarth, 1978
 * D. (O.) semicelatum Simpson, 1843
 * D. (E.) simplex Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) stresherense Sapunov, 1963
 * D. (D.) subholandrei Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) suntarense Krimholz, 1957
 * D. (D.) tardosensis Kovács, 2014
 * D. (D.) tauromenense Fucini, 1935
 * D. (D.) temperatum Buckman, 1927
 * D. (O.) tenuicostatum Young & Bird, 1822
 * D. (O.) toxophorum Buckman, 1926
 * D. (D.) triangulum Fischer, 1966
 * D. (D.) vermis Simpson, 1855
 * D. (O.) wunnenbergi Hoffmann, 1968

Dactylioceras commune has shells reaching a diameter of 9 - 11 cm. Usually the average diameter reach about 24.1 mm, while the average width is 8.20 mm.

In these small but strong shells ribs run straight or are slightly convex across the venter. These ribs are quite coarse on the outer whorls and finer on the inner whorls. The whorl section is as round as a circle.

Fossils of this species have been found in Lower Jurassic, Toarcian age of Canada, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, United Kingdom and United States.

title: Dactylioceras