I have multiple regions in my fantasy kingdom one of which is largely high elevation tundra, ice fields and snow covered mountains (the ice fields and tundra are not in the same area of the region). I am looking for a valuable trading commodity in addition to the cold-hardy herds and the wool, felt and weaving that would come from them. Salt was something that occurred to me. They are thirty to fifty miles from a largely ice capped sea.
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4 Answers
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Continents float all over the place when a planet is forming, so latitudes don't actually matter when trying to identify what resources will be available where. I'm sure we'll be mining Antarctica as soon as we run out of local resources.
When two plates collide, much of the underlying rock gets shifted and turned over, kind of like the way plows uncover worms and bugs. This makes high elevation areas like mountain ranges and plateaus convenient places to find all sorts of exposed veins of ore.
answered Dec 8, 2022 at 23:10
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1$\begingroup$ I hadn’t really thought of it in that way, but of course that makes perfect sense and will help with a variety of mining ideas. I wish I could “accept” multiple ideas! $\endgroup$ Dec 8, 2022 at 23:34
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3$\begingroup$ Halite deposits underground or exposed by faulting, absolutely yes. Surface salt in the form of playas or salt water lakes? Almost certainly not. Salt is quite water soluble, and will dissolve / erode away faster than it can be uplifted via tectonic activity; and it is unlikely that salt water lakes would develop at elevation. $\endgroup$ Dec 9, 2022 at 0:32
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$\begingroup$ @XanderHenderson, I think that the OP was just giving salt deposits as an example. $\endgroup$ Dec 9, 2022 at 2:31
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2$\begingroup$ I like this answer. It encompasses the surface salt mining exists in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah - 4,200 feet (1.2 km) above sea level. It's possible due to ancient Lake Bonneville, which happened to be the low point a long time in the past. Using salt as a simple example, minerals can appear all over the place on a planet - sometimes in fairly creative ways. Mother Nature usually wins when it comes to the "how the heck did that happen?" game. $\endgroup$– JBHDec 9, 2022 at 4:27
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They mine a lot of pink salt in the Himalaya mountain range on Earth. This is the result of plate tectonics and many, many tens of millions of years of uplift. While not quite as high, the salt flats of the Great Basin of North America (e.g. in Utah) are more than 1 km above sea level.
There is no reason that a fantasy kingdom couldn't have a similar resource.
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2$\begingroup$ +1 the Himalaya literally has chuck of oceanic crust stuck in it from when it closed then you have the sedimentary wedge that also gets uplifted when a subduction zone closes off. $\endgroup$– JohnDec 8, 2022 at 22:46
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2$\begingroup$ I love this. I’m thinking purple salt or blue because this world has a lot of things, including a few metals in that color scheme. $\endgroup$ Dec 8, 2022 at 23:32
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Plenty of high snowy places in the central parts of the US have large salt deposits, much of America was a covered by a sea at one point. As that sea dried up, because the land was being uplifted, it left behind salt.
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In addition to the examples already given by @RobertRapplean, @ohwilleke, and @John, see the Salar de Uyuni (elevation 3,656 m, area: 10,000 $\mathrm{km}^2$) Salar de Atacama (elevation 2,300 m, area: 3,000 $\mathrm{km}^2$), both ensconced in the Andes.
