Questions tagged [geology]
For questions about rocks, minerals and the physical structure and substance of the world.
473
questions
9
votes
6answers
1k views
Possible reef world?
Piggybacking off this question:
Shallow sea world - plausable geology?
what would we need to have a world covered in reef?
An entire world of this:
If I understood them correctly the previous ...
9
votes
6answers
2k views
Reasons for insanely huge precious metal deposits?
In my book series, there is this extremely rich Earthlike planet called Aurea whose claim to fame is supplying the vast majority of the galaxy’s precious metals (gold and silver for the purposes of ...
2
votes
1answer
100 views
Magic liquid that falls like rain, how will that affect the weather patterns and landscape? [closed]
So, my knowledge of weather patterns and geology is very limited, but I'm writing a book where magic is an abundant liquid substance that behaves similarly to water. I'm not sure exactly what it'll be ...
4
votes
3answers
807 views
How fast and how would fjords erode?
I'm working on a world that hasn't had an ice age in 250 million years and looking at how to shape the coasts.
I'm thinking about fjords (also glacial lakes) and trying to figure out if they would ...
4
votes
2answers
120 views
What will Glacier Bay National Park look like in 2000 years?
I am working on a story that takes place roughly 2000 years after a worst-case-scenario climate apocalypse. It revolves around a society located in present-day Glacier Bay National Park on the Alaska/...
1
vote
1answer
66 views
What would be the effects on terrain of an atomic bomb on a Sahelian or Saharan grassland or desert?
So, I'm coming up with a world in which, after a nuclear war in Africa, there is a bunker in the country of Chad. The landscape has been affected by over 50 atomic bombs. The main characters leave the ...
14
votes
7answers
3k views
Reasons for a very small but very high mountain range in an area with no plate boundaries?
One of the cities in my world, known as Kerkapeze, is situated in a location I just realized I'd have to be very creative to justify: it lies on a narrow plateau between two high but very small ...
11
votes
3answers
3k views
Would it be Possible to Extract Helium in a World Without Fossil Fuels?
I understand that on Earth, we mainly get our helium from natural gas deposits, which traps helium atoms generated from radioactive decay. Would this process still work on a terrestrial planet without ...
6
votes
2answers
374 views
What would happen on the surface of a terrestrial planet captured by a gas giant?
So, from what I've read of Porter & Grundy (2011), most gas giant planets orbiting within their star's habitable zones are thought to have migrated there from further out in the solar system, with ...
1
vote
0answers
57 views
Geology and climate etc on a earth size habitable moon of a gas giant [closed]
A bit of background:
I'm in the beginning stages of creating a habitable moon orbiting a gas giant. The conditions I have so far for this are:
The moon itself is more or less Earth-size, and the gas ...
3
votes
1answer
159 views
Mountain heights - theoretical limits
I have a country bounded on three sides by fold mountains. Due to a magical plot device, the force acting to drive the upward motion of the mountains persists indefinitely, acting on the plates ...
6
votes
1answer
80 views
Would an asteroid colliding with a terrestrial planet result in the creation of extensive caves nearby the crater?
I just did some research on the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, which is the crater from the asteroid responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Yucatán itself does have ...
6
votes
1answer
201 views
Can a fast planetary rotation create a planet with an equatorial continent, preferably with very high mountains and two polar oceans?
I’m trying to create a planet with two small polar oceans with equatorial supercontinent in the middle. The land is in turn divided in two by high mountains that act as barrier and a source of water ...
14
votes
5answers
1k views
What factors influence what kind of shoreline you get?
I'm writing about a group of colonists on an Earthlike world, where I want to get the geography realistically correct, and it occurs to me that one thing I have not really seen discussed is the nature ...
6
votes
2answers
104 views
Would it be possible to have predictable, repeating volcanic eruptions on an inhabited island?
So, suppose we have a very large island. Exactly how big it is doesn't matter too much, but it must be big enough to support a small country.
This is a volcanic island, and the volcanoes on this ...
2
votes
3answers
219 views
How to dry an ocean planet and NOT turn it into a salty desert?
So, Here's the scenario:
we start with an ocean planet, with minimal dry land. The planet stays this way for at least 400 million years. (Notably, life evolves during this time period.) Then, a magic ...
4
votes
4answers
222 views
What would an until-recently waterworld look like?
So, suppose a world that, for most of its biological history, was a water world, with minimal dry land. Starting from the Cambrian Explosion analogue, the world stays like this for roughly 460 million ...
5
votes
4answers
411 views
What environmental conditions would result in Crude oil being far easier to access than coal?
So, A bit of a long winded explanation:
I am designing a world that is meant to be both nostalgic and alien; A world that is familiar enough at first glance, but has many differences to ours.
One ...
6
votes
6answers
633 views
How can a troglodytic society democratize braille literature?
Premise
The surface of my world cannot support life. The inhabitants of my world sustain themselves off troglophauna and aquifers. I'm leaving the mechanics of where energy comes from in this shadow-...
12
votes
7answers
3k views
How to get blue sand
I want to have a blue furred species native to a desert in the world I'm building, so the obvious way to have that is to have the sand of that desert be blue so they are camouflaged. I could just say ...
4
votes
2answers
304 views
What would happen if the Somalian tectonic plate was suddenly lifted directly up?
I am writing a book where prior to the current events, an event caused by a magic surge resulted in the Somalian tectonic plate to be quickly lifted directly up enough to create a new continent. I was ...
1
vote
1answer
86 views
How does this island rotate without melting the whole half of the planet with friction?
My friend asked me if a 150-200 km wide island (more precisely, a lithospheric plate of such size) that rotates insanely fast by the geological terms, something around one rotation per week, is ...
9
votes
1answer
280 views
Planet with natural process(es) that results in cube-shaped mountains
Premise
The task is to explain how a planet can possess cube-shaped mountain ranges and maintain them across geological time scales. I have tossed around several ideas, such as creating a vacuum ...
0
votes
0answers
16 views
How high could a super-mountain get on a lower gravity planet (0.7g)? [duplicate]
I’m thinking of a world with one extremely high mountain that would factor prominently into the mythology of the civilizations. I’ve heard that it’s estimated that 10,000 meters is about as high as a ...
5
votes
2answers
133 views
How viable would it be to dig down on Mars to build an underground colony?
I want a colony on Mars that builds BOTH ways, up and down. Domes or structures that go up normally, but a large portion of the colony would be levels underground.
I think this would allow you to take ...
4
votes
1answer
134 views
Endless rain in a cave
I am currently designing an extensive big volcanic cave system located underneath a glacier, which contains a phenomenon of underground rain. The nearby volcano is still active, and heats the ice year ...
4
votes
4answers
376 views
Could a tsunami separate two landmasses?
I posed here a question about a super-earthquake separating a Pangaea-like continent in a matter of days. Unfortunately, one of the answers rightfully points out that such an earthquake would generate ...
2
votes
1answer
152 views
Valles - a world of deep canyons, could it work?
I’m developing Valles - a world of deep canyons, and I need some opinion on geology, hydrology and climate.
Valles has earthlike mass and density (for simplicity sake). Planet’s surface is a desert. ...
0
votes
2answers
94 views
UPDATED: What phenomena could be powerful enough to hide an island?
Edit: My original question concerned the magnetic properties of gems in this world. As I have realized more and more through the answers how unrealistic this is, I am now seeking input on any general ...
2
votes
2answers
79 views
Continental drift of a planet over 900 million years
Over the past 2 weeks, I've been attempting to create a planet with a plausible continental drift. I was really hoping to get some kind of response to my work.
I'll stick up my hand and admit it right ...
2
votes
1answer
81 views
Planet covered in non-Newtonian fluid
Basically, I watched that horrible holiday special. The animated short that introduced our friend Boba Fett, and there’s a planet that’s apparently covered completely by a non-Newtonian fluid. What ...
1
vote
1answer
102 views
Determining maximum cave depth
I am planning on making this planet of caves, and it has cave systems that dwarf Earth's. It's got carbon-based life, a chemical composition rich in copper, a good amount of water, and less gravity ...
0
votes
0answers
35 views
Fossil fuels production optimization
I'm sure that a jungle planet would probably have more fossil fuels than Earth, as there'd be a lot more organic carbon, which would get buried underground and converted into fossil fuels. We'd ...
2
votes
3answers
74 views
What happens if continental crust overrides a divergent boundary?
I'm wondering what would happen in this hypothetical scenario. Enjoy these super high-graphic visual representations -
Figure 1 -
Figure 2 -
Figure 3 -
Figure 4 -
What happens to the plate ...
4
votes
1answer
598 views
Mountain inside a “crater” after a meteor impact?
A meteor crashes in a very geologically unstable region of an earth-like planet.
A few years later, a person visiting that site will find the following features:
A concave depression, of a circular (...
0
votes
3answers
111 views
how to cause a supervolcanic eruption
I want to make use of the Toba Catastrophe Theory in my story. From Wikipedia:
The Youngest Toba eruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred around 75,000 years ago at the site of present-day ...
4
votes
1answer
77 views
How could a civilization survive a continent splitting cataclysm? [closed]
Say the lost continent of Lemuria was real, and was home to an ancient sophisticated civilization that like the Atlanteans, dabbled in high technologies and forbidden magicks. Due to their fatal ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
What temperatures would occur several meters below different types of deserts?
What temperatures can one expect 50-150 meters below different types of deserts? The rocks in my campaign heavily feature iron sediments, like in Australia, but since this is a fantasy world I am open ...
8
votes
4answers
2k views
How Would the Mountains Form in This Supercontinent?
Here is a supercontinent map generated randomly from the Donjon website:
Now, hold on just a minute. Something looks wrong. The mountains in brown and white are too far inland to be caused by ...
1
vote
1answer
194 views
What is the largest a mountain could be? [closed]
On a given planet, what is the general way to determine the maximum height a mountain can reach?
3
votes
1answer
71 views
How can room sized amethyst geodes form commonly?
I would like my Earth-like planet to have a very strange feature. Near spherical amethyst geodes with diameters up to 11 meters - the size of a large room, form commonly underground at depths from 30 -...
2
votes
2answers
109 views
Can this natural park support the growth of 200 to 300 meters tall trees?
In my last question, I was asking what kind of shelter would need my arboreal civilization (Here is the link).
To recap very quickly : they constantly live in heights of giant trees, and never go down ...
1
vote
1answer
75 views
How big could a caldera volcano possibly get?
I've found most websites saying that 100 kilometers is the maximum size of a caldera volcano, but none of them explain why this is the case. So, can caldera volcanoes get any bigger than this and why ...
3
votes
4answers
106 views
How would volcanism be different on a terrestrial planet denser than earth?
Specifically, how would volcanism be different on a terrestrial planet with these parameters:
Mass: 0.38 Earth
Radius: 0.7 Earth
Density: 1.1 Earth
19
votes
5answers
5k views
Is there something wrong with my fictional lighthouse?
I'm writing a story of a fictional location on Earth, or a very Earth-like world, perhaps set in the late 1800s, or at some point when lighthouses were still in use.
It's located on the Eastern end of ...
3
votes
2answers
188 views
Coal or coal analogs without Carboniferous?
In my world, there could be no Carboniferous, during which the overwhelming majority of coal was deposited on our planet. No swamps probably exist either, cutting off that way of generating coal as ...
3
votes
1answer
95 views
How could life exist underneath a world too small for a magnetic field?
In a new documentary made by melodysheep called LIFE BEYOND II: The Museum of Alien Life, the creator proposed there could be life on a planet too small for a magnetic field beneath the surface.
But ...
4
votes
4answers
235 views
A world with extremely limited fossil fuels
So this is a slight revision of my earlier idea, of a world that entirely lacks fossil fuels. So basically the big idea I'm interested in is an industrial revolution that fully goes through with the ...
10
votes
10answers
2k views
Can a mountain range form with a very loose surface?
In my story there is a mountain range which is almost impossible to climb because it is very steep, and it has a very, very loose surface. Wherever you put your foot, the ground is liable to slip away ...
4
votes
4answers
218 views
How to maximize the sand depth of a desert planet
NB: There is a related question – What kind of planet could have giant sand worms? – but this one is concerned specifically with the sand. Giant sand worms would be awesome incidental.
Assuming a ...
