Questions tagged [environment]
For questions about an environment or aspects of it such as geographical, atmospheric or climate.
3
votes
3answers
146 views
Can trees and plant life grow on rock?
So I’m creating a world where the ground is mainly made of different rocks and stone in most areas - soil is sparse.
Could trees and plant life grow on the stone ground if a water source is nearby? ...
-2
votes
6answers
200 views
200G to 1G environment
Let's say a human were to live most of his life in a 200 G environment but then suddenly enter a 1 g environment, What would be the effects to his body and will this give him the ability to carry ...
4
votes
2answers
49 views
Stellar and magnetic parameters for creating polar radiation hazards
I've got a generally earthlike planet, but my goal is to make radiation exposure in the polar regions a much larger hazard than it is on Earth, while not being an issue in other regions. Nothing ...
2
votes
2answers
116 views
What would happen to the Earth if it were suddenly transported to a completely empty void? [duplicate]
The entire planet Earth is suddenly teleported (never mind how for now) to a completely empty space. No sun, no moon, no stars or other planets. There's absolutely nothing out there and it appears ...
4
votes
2answers
128 views
How would plants evolve with longer days?
(First post on StackExchange, hello world!)
The project that I'm currently working on involves a Binary Planet system, both with life, although I'm only focusing on one. This planet has a climate ...
4
votes
2answers
141 views
How much heat would a 1km asteroid release into earth's atmosphere?
I am writing a theory for a game that is in an apocalypse. An asteroid is heading for earth and will crash into the earth regardless in this theory. It is 1km in size but due to the YORP effect it has ...
1
vote
4answers
198 views
What is the “fullest” the universe could be in terms of living space? [closed]
Lets take a civilization that has surpassed the type III on the Kardashev scale. It has the following assumptions:
It harnesses the energy of entire Galaxies,
its populace did not transcend. If you ...
6
votes
3answers
111 views
Technology to produce food without land, what will happen with the land next?
Let's say we have the technology to produce all of the human food in factories without the need for land (i.e. Solarfood, Memphis Meats). Right now, there is about 50% of all habitable land use for ...
11
votes
12answers
3k views
Why would life energy be poisonous for the environment?
Mana is the life energy of the soul that is bestowed by nature. Everything is born with a certain amount, with humans containing the most. When something dies, it's body naturally decays and supplies ...
1
vote
1answer
140 views
Are there chemical elements deadly to mushrooms but not to humans?
Are there any chemical elements dangerous to fungus/mushrooms that wouldn't threaten the human species.
The chemical elements I'm looking for would be in the periodic table of elements.
It doesn't ...
6
votes
4answers
300 views
Cave/Subterranean Lighting
I have a cave that is ravine like and stretches approximately one kilometer down into the Earth. Let's assume that the cave has a clear, crystalline roof allowing some light in.
Is there any sort of ...
6
votes
3answers
150 views
How to have people and big bugs at the same time
There's been a few questions about making big bugs before and the consensus in they can't get much bigger than 3ft or so (which in reality is still huge). Catch is, you need quite a bit of extra ...
3
votes
2answers
135 views
Climate checking my map
So I've decided to come here to see how my map would be effected by climate.
Notes: The planet has a 10° axial tilt, it's a little smaller then earth, and has earth like conditions.
So my questions ...
1
vote
1answer
108 views
Could humans wreck the world enough to tilt its axis? [duplicate]
Some Context
My story idea is in the likes of Pacific Rim. If you didn't watch it, it's about a crack in the sea that spawns giant monsters called Kaiju, who really like to chew on buildings.
...
0
votes
4answers
153 views
How can a radioactive planet kill most fetuses in utero, but not give everyone cancer?
My setting takes place on a planet that has a very high level of radiation because of reasons unknown to the population. This factor or group of factors are not man-made, but due to some change in ...
-10
votes
2answers
233 views
What would happen if a woman astronaut didn’t wear/took off her helmet/spacesuit while on the moon/mars? [closed]
In this story, Mars is totally inhabited by women
Would she die from lack of oxygen/suffocation or lack of pressure/boiling fluids?
0
votes
3answers
166 views
What amount of heat would be necessary to evaporate the oceans? Can his heat threshold be reached if there were no ozone layer? [closed]
The problem in my fictional future Earth was: almost the entire ozone layer disappeared due to a massive release of CFCs in the atmosphere. I was trying to calculate if this would lead to the oceans ...
1
vote
2answers
414 views
When two continents crash against each other, mountains arise, right? [closed]
In the background of my world it happens that two continents crash against each other. Now that I've done some research, do I correctly understand that this would create a mountain range? Or did I get ...
2
votes
10answers
404 views
why would performing nature magic be safer in groups of people? [closed]
A Tham field is the background magical radiation field that exists throughout the universe. Nature magic involves accessing this field in order to produce effects in the real world. A user does this ...
0
votes
1answer
143 views
Life in a gas torus around a neutron star
Larry Niven wrote a novel called The Integral Trees, which was followed by a sequel The Smoke Ring. This is Wikipedia's synopsis of the setting:
The story occurs around the fictional neutron star ...
4
votes
2answers
105 views
How can a tree be used to conduct electricity?
A network is classified as two or more connected devices that share information. In this world, the inhabitants use a system of trees that operate similarly to super-computers. These trees collect and ...
3
votes
6answers
188 views
Can I have a glacier on a tidally-locked shallow-sea planet?
I have a planet that is tidally locked to its sun.
The ocean is shallow (a few hundred meters) and was artificially created in the past by harvesting the system's Oort cloud or outer-system ice ...
4
votes
1answer
142 views
Lake World and Water Salinity
I have an idea for a world where land prevails over water and what waters there are are largely relegated to scattered lakes of varying sizes. Some of these lakes would be mega lakes, the size of the ...
5
votes
6answers
461 views
How to prevent large groups of animals from destroying my land? [closed]
I've created a world that is filled with beings and creatures that are very specific that can be easily separated and recognized. In this world there are seven (7) basic types of lifeforms (not ...
9
votes
6answers
5k views
A Planet Where The Four Seasons Occur Multiple Times In One Year?
Earthlings,
I live on a world where most places on my planet has four seasons, just like yours does. We also have one sun and one moon, presumably. It's been not even a year since I came of age (20), ...
4
votes
1answer
125 views
Is there a best place to begin Neo medieval world building? [closed]
I'm just barely starting out with trying to get a basic idea of what architecture, infrastructure, and systems would work best as I'm drawing my world. I have a twin characters who are raised in a ...
3
votes
4answers
578 views
Could a new species wipe out the rest of an established ecosystem?
I'm not asking about an exotic species in the modern world we know all too well the havoc that can be caused by the introduction of an alien species into an existing ecosystem. I want to know if a ...
3
votes
2answers
181 views
Could the World's Rainshadows Have Spiny Forests?
There is no other way around it--Madagascar is an evolutionary uniquety. 80% of the island's species live nowhere else on Earth. Among this uniqueness is a habitat that seems to come out of science ...
0
votes
2answers
228 views
A Mountain appearing in the desert
What would happen if a mountain just appeared in a desert?
This would happen by magical means, but what would happen to the surrounding ecosystem if a large mountain just appeared in the middle of a ...
3
votes
4answers
290 views
How can an empire on a super continent gain control over its neighbors without access to its coastline?
In this setting Pangaea never broke apart into different landmasses. Instead it stayed together as one giant super continent. As a result, most human civilizations developed along the coastline, where ...
-1
votes
2answers
82 views
how can I make communal societies develop technologically?
In early human history, we started out as a hunter - gatherer society. As time went on, we began developing tribes and fighting each other for territory and resources in order to survive the harsh ...
6
votes
4answers
238 views
Aside from low gravity, what conditions favor dramatic terrain?
Fantasy and sci-fi works often are set in worlds of dramatic terrain, because, well... it's dramatic. A few examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about:
I understand that Earth has some ...
-1
votes
1answer
136 views
How a huge verdant area can exist next to barren desert? [duplicate]
Imagine an alternative version of Athas, the world of Dark Sun setting. Everything around the populated areas is a desert filled with cannibals and places that have some natural life is kept like that ...
9
votes
5answers
161 views
Mechanism for high geographical change but not killing everything
Premise:
Earth has a magical cataclysm that pulls up new mountains, pushes down parts of landmasses, and generally reshapes Europe enough to make it unrecognizable (to the average person looking at a ...
2
votes
0answers
79 views
Why would somebody want to stop the four elements? [closed]
I'm writing a story about the four elements that are in four people. One controls water, one controls fire, and so on for air and earth. Why would the antagonist want to get rid of the four people/...
15
votes
18answers
4k views
How can a nation of amazons avoid being invaded by their neighbors?
There is a large island populated entirely by women. Men are not allowed on the island and are killed or taken prisoner if they attempt to land. These females train to be warriors from the day they ...
3
votes
4answers
213 views
How can I use magic to connect a series of pyramids thousands of miles apart?
This setting takes place in a time equivalent to the ancient world. My kingdom needs an unlimited energy source that doesn't run out and cheap to manufacture. To do this, I have captured a Golden ...
5
votes
2answers
160 views
What would be the fastest method of detecting and destroying drone intruders in a geomagnetic storm area using modern technology?
In my world, I have a geomagnetic storm generator that conceals an island from major governing bodies in an Earth-like setting. I learned that exploratory drones would be unable to transmit findings ...
9
votes
1answer
293 views
How, and for how long, could a permanent storm be maintained on Earth by a stationary mega-structure?
Suppose you had a tower-like mega-structure, rooted all the way into near-infinite geo-thermal energy of the Earth's crust, connected to the ocean such that water is not a limiting factor to the super-...
1
vote
3answers
143 views
Can you create a mini ocean or sea at a smaller scale in land which can hold marine life (0.55 square km-onward)
To a really small scale factoring that everything will be done to a smaller scale.
If this is possible what would be the ideal size and how can it be accomplished and maintained.
4
votes
3answers
187 views
Brine pool ecosystems
(Question in highlighted text)
So, the chances are that you've heard of brine pools, which form when methane erupting from the seabed expose ancient salt deposits - the concentrated salt mixes with ...
2
votes
1answer
51 views
What would the effects of rapid tectonic movement be?
So once again the world is in the Pangaea formation and the plates are moving on the same trajectory to form the continents that the world is in today (I'll refer to it as Modern). Instead of moving ...
12
votes
11answers
6k views
How can Ganymede have an Earth-like gravity without us having realized it?
Imagine a small primitive humanoid civilization that developed independently in caves under the surface of Ganymede. We can assume there's enough light that filters through the crystalline surface to ...
11
votes
7answers
3k views
Do hunter-gatherers move or stay put in the winter?
A hunter-gatherer society exists in lands similar to that of Bavaria. There is plentiful game in the forests and glades, and there are many rivers with edible aquatic life. Smaller rivers can freeze ...
5
votes
2answers
214 views
What are reasonable rotation rates of an Earth-like world?
I have the radius, volume, mass and density figured out. It does not have a moon. I do wonder how that will affect the rotation. The Earth's rotation was considerably faster before the creation of the ...
1
vote
1answer
94 views
How can changing environments make my super-villain super-powered while causing chronic (extreme) pain? [closed]
I have a super-villain who is from another environment( e.g. aquatic, extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional ( Bonus points for the least extreme from populous land-locked earth )) They are not a ...
11
votes
8answers
2k views
What would cause termites to be the dominant herbivores on a savanna?
Problem statement
I am building a world where the flora and fauna is based on that of Gondwana, the lost supercontinent that consisted of South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Australia and ...
4
votes
4answers
248 views
Can a continental scale creature develop it's own ecosystem? How?
I am designing a monster that is as large as a continent. It flies across the planet very slowly and has basically a snake form. Life cannot exist on the planet's surface so the animals are drawn to ...
8
votes
4answers
367 views
How would flora be affected by longer night than day cycle?
Night/Day Cycle
I'm trying to make a fantasy world with a longer night cycle than day.
With the advice of Renan, 12 hours of proper night, 4 hours of near/partial dark and 8 hours of good light. ...
18
votes
11answers
5k views
How can a portal that connects two planets affect the environment?
In my world there are two planets within the same solar system, which are connected approximately every seven cycles through a portal that opens for a few days.
The planets are very similar.
The ...
