Posts tagged geology
The enormous shield volcano that this question was based on was held up by magic or God. It presented some very interesting conditions for alternate worlds so I thought I would develop that train o...
Building on this question about space exploration on the slopes of a 50 mile high volcano, I'm curious what would happen when the volcano erupts. The volcano is: 50 miles high, just on the edge ...
I am designing a fantasy setting for pen-and-paper role-playing purposes. I have decided that a continent be situated right on a Pole of some imaginary planet with axial tilt comparable to Earth. M...
I just asked myself what is the role of the mountains on Earth? Well there's a well known role for the climate and weather. But is there a kind of physical or geological role? What would happen i...
According to this list mercury only makes up 6.7×10-6 % of the Earth's crust (by mass, I believe; though even if it's by number of atoms it's still tiny). I'd like to make mercury sufficiently c...
Everyone loves a Dyson Sphere or a Ring World, so much more room to enjoy than a traditional round planetoid, it's all about space efficiency for the advanced civilizations. There are however a nu...
What planetary parameters such as plate tectonics and volcanism etc would best encourage the most uneven planetary surface on an earth like planet? I want a world to be covered in very uneven terr...
I've heard that bodies of water boasting high salinities tend to turn red due to seasonal algae blooms. I have a river in a fantasy setting I'm working on that's blood red year-round, and I want to...
I am currently creating a world from scratch, and while I have a map, I still need to figure out distribution of natural resources. For resources like fossil fuels, while many do appear in deserts...
Could a continent roughly the size of Europe, Africa and North-America combined be formed almost entirely due to volcanic action? Something with a similar formation to this. From a chain of vol...
I need to create a world with some very high plateaus and some very deep depressions. The sides of these structures should be very steep and unclimbable. They need to provide an obstacle sufficient...
Halite, or rock salt, is a rock formed by salt deposited in past and then undergone geological processes. My question is: provided that enough (how to get that much sugar is not in scope of this q...
Let us take an earthlike planet. Approximately same radius, atmosphere and climate. Now let us create an approximately circular, paleovolcanic mountain approximately 30 kilometers in height and 15...
On January 1, 2018 angry aliens decide to show humanity just who's boss. So they vaporize an area of land 1 mile deep and 10 wide, centered around the Panama Canal. Some preliminary facts that we...
I would like a world with a big LOT of subterranean space to explore, colonize, and trap ancient evil beings. Now, while the questions about food and ventilation are well adressed on Worldbuilding...
A lone mountain on a plain is powerful visual setup and one I would like to use in my world. My concern at this point is that I don't want this location to be volcanically active, now or in the pa...
I'd like earthquakes to cause deep gullies along some mountainsides of my planet. Here on earth, vertical fault scarps can form from earthquakes, but the examples I see online tend to be less gully...
In a world naturally formed where some magic exists but is mainly used by sentient species, I'm trying to come up with a more or less scientific way to explain how this special, rare ore (going to ...
Premise One of the many conditions needed to support life (as we know it) is a planet with a surface protected from deadly radiation from a sun or even other sources. In the grand scheme of things...
My scenario is a civilization on a carbon-rich planet. The planet has a hydrocarbon atmosphere, oceans and clouds. Most rocks are carbides. The only flammable substance in such an atmosphere is oxy...
Reading this answer I realized that for my purposes I don't really want a fully steampunk world. All I want is lack of cars and planes as we know them, and lack of oil, or inaccessible deposits of ...
Background Information: 252 million years ago, Siberia erupted, releasing enough lava to fill in a volume anywhere between one and four million cubic kilometers. Any time someone thinks "large ig...
Planet - habitable, tidally locked planet orbitting red dwarf. Aim: a realistic answer (neither involving handwavium nor aliens that used it all) why a virgin planet that already experienced a wh...
The concept of a metal poor world is one that I find deeply fascinating. In part because I fell in love with the setting that first exposed me to the concept, Dark Sun. So I want incorporate a ver...
I'm building a mining colony world with large mine-able deposits of rare earth elements (REEs). One source of REEs on Earth is alkaline carbonitite magma. On Earth, I believe, it is thought to be d...
Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) features a giant (and I mean stupidly big) cave under a large and busy metropolis. Nobody is aware of its existence, which means that at least since the city's founding (...
So in my story/world I have a region that is straight up destroyed...demonic magic is nasty stuff. So we have rings Ring 1 (1 is in the middle) This ring has a diameter of about 200 miles. At...
What could cause a planet to naturally have zero caverns with surface openings apart from small impact hollows in the sides of craters and crevices carved in cliffs? To be specific, zero large ca...
A couple friends and I have started a world called Lothaucan. On this world there is a continent called Novara with a circle of islands as its key feature. (seen in the mid-left of the image) I...
Here, I asked if it's possible to terraform a hot planet. But now, if we have a volcanic active planet, can we use the same techniques to cool it down? Normally, the planet cool off slowly after...
On planets of have different temperatures, conditions and chemical makeup of the lava/magma, what would be the least viscous lava around? (Relevant to an earlier question - What would an efficient...
Suppose you have a planet large enough to support life, with water and air all that, but old enough that it has exhausted its internal heat supply, the core is frozen solid, and there is little to ...
How could an earth sized and broadly / liberally earth-like planet have plate tectonics but still experience zero or weak / little earthquakes? How can I have the weakest earthquakes possible while...
On Earth in 2017, finding oil or coal deposits is a tall order. However, consider a science fiction scenario where we find a habitable planet that hasn't hosted an intelligent species in at least a...
In my world there is a kingdom built on hexagonal pillars like you see at the giant's causeway. Your social status is based on how tall the pillar you live on is. Sort of like the image below. T...
I'm designing a world, and I want it to have major geological changes over a short period of time. This includes continental drift, which I'm assuming should have some interesting results. In parti...
I'm curious what the gravity would be like on an infinite area flat world. The plane of the world would have some finite depth but be infinite in all cardinal directions. This is, in effect, a Mine...
Could a planet with a core of majority tungsten and cobalt with traces of gold,copper,iron and uranium be able to support life?
In a story I'm writing, the setting is a tidally locked planet with a moon a fifth its size in a binary system of a mature red dwarf and much smaller second sun. I haven't decided the planet's exac...
Let's say through some magic or other, the Earth's spin came to a halt (to the point that the same side now always faces the Sun) How would this process feel? Obviously it would depend on how long...
In this universe, the planet Paveiha has a mountain range that completely surrounds a region in a semi square/rectangle(ish) shape. Inside the borders of this vast mountain range is a verdant land ...
My plot is to have temples,castles and cities built on top of the remains of previous structures repeatedly to create a multi-level underground dungeon. My goal is to figure out how many levels thi...
From 359 to 298 million years ago, the "Carboniferous Coal Swamps" dominated the continents. It was the Carboniferous coal itself that sparked one of the greatest watersheds in human history--th...
I was told that building a tunnel into the centre of Enceladus is not possible, since it has subsurface ocean and molten, rocky core. But its brother, Mimas is a bit smaller, and shows no sign of ...
The extreme pressure and temperature greatly reduces our ability to drill holes deeper than some kilometers into Earth's mantle. However, on a body smaller, colder and less dense, this would be a ...
How big of a volcano would be needed for a large (Alaska-sized) area on an Earth-Like planet to be covered in a thick shell of igneous rock? Would that volcano also destroy the world or make it un...
How plausible would it be for an asteroid impact to create a hole through the Earth's crust into the mantle? What sort of traces would such an impact leave behind? Would it be survivable by at le...
One of the ideas I've had for a story is to have million year old subterranean buildings/cities/temples which have younger architecture built on top of them, resulting in a "dungeon" which would be...
What is the oldest a still extant cave on Earth could be? What conditions could encourage the longevity of a cave? It seems that the oldest known caves, the Jenolan Caves in Australia, formed i...
A fault that ruptures causing an earthquake can cause a chain reaction of dynamically triggered earthquakes in nearby faults, thus causing a much larger seismic event. What are some high unlikely b...
