New answers tagged geology
6
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How large can a network of underground tunnels be before it collapses on itself?
Tunnels in the deep crust won't hold up for long regardless of size. A comment I recall seeing relative to the Kola Superdeep Borehole project (translated from Russian, I think, and I've long since ...
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1
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Accepted
Getting a planet to be as volcanic as Io
The simple answer is that you want to crank up the strength of tides on your planet by increasing the planet eccentricity, but it's a bit more subtle than that.
In principle, you can imagine a scale ...
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3
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Getting a planet to be as volcanic as Io
Alter the orbital parameters and give it a more eccentric orbit around its star, so that tidal heating keep its interior hot and active.
Basically, replicate the peculiarity of Io-Jupiter system with ...
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2
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Getting a planet to be as volcanic as Io
There are two obvious ways to do this, both require an odd, but not unreasonable, concentration of certain elements:
Carbonatite volcanism, this gives you a very volcanic world that isn't ...
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2
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Can flood basalt eruptions start in historical timescales?
My existing answer is me reading this as a current IRL question about the next flood basalt rather than a hypothetical about rate of onset of such eruptions in general. One theory holds that flood ...
- 49.3k
6
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Can flood basalt eruptions start in historical timescales?
Maybe but given the current level of mantle depletion it is increasingly unlikely. As eruptive activity continues over geological time the elements in the mantle that are involved in the formation of ...
- 49.3k
7
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Accepted
Can flood basalt eruptions start in historical timescales?
The longest walk begins with one step. Any geological phenomenon begins at one instant in time.
The well-known Deccan Traps large igneous province was formed in a series of very large volcanic ...
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2
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Can flood basalt eruptions start in historical timescales?
There is nothing preventing it to happen or start during historic times, at any moment.
On a smaller scale we have examples of long lasting eruptions: Mount Etna in Italy has frequently had long ...
- 297k
0
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Coral Islands and Atolls on a Drip-and-Plume world
We've seen on Mars that plumes tend to create nothing but massive mountains. Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, was created because of a plume and its 3x the size of Mount Everest. ...
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Coral Islands and Atolls on a Drip-and-Plume world
Rings atolls exist because the volcanic mountains they form around have sunk into the crust and dropped below the water line. Drip and plume volcanism should generally result in longer dwell time for ...
- 49.3k
2
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Accepted
Coral Islands and Atolls on a Drip-and-Plume world
It really depends on how densely distributed are these drip and plume spots, and how long they live before fading out.
With dense and short lived spots, you will have a lot of atolls going through the ...
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Coral Islands and Atolls on a Drip-and-Plume world
They should be much the same. Polynesia & Micronesia are mostly made from volcanic activity. Coral will form anywhere that the conditions are right and the rest follows.
The larger Islands like ...
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Crustal composition of an ammonia planet
Well first some key points.
First, your pressure would not be 2.5 atm, it would be higher. Your world, assuming a distribution equal to that of the Earth, should have a gravity of approximately 3.3 g ...
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