Posts tagged geology
How long would it take for the earth's crust to move in such a way that we, as a species, will be forced to migrate to other different lands than the ones we inhabit today? The result being that ou...
How would it be possible to have a planet with two defining surface features, ocean and mountains? Such a planet would have to be habitable for humans who arrive there, though it does not need to s...
Since the geological history of the world's largest nation is as big as the nation itself, and since I don't have a master familiarity with Russia's formation over hundreds of millions of years, I'...
I'm looking at a science fiction scenario similar to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness where buildings are exposed to the elements for millions of years. I have a feeling they wouldn't be qui...
This new idea/story includes an ancient subterranean race, but they need to survive harsh conditions. Developing a nervous system/brain is important. Are certain proteins necessary to form a comp...
So, on a previous question of mine, someone answered that it would be feasible to build a city on a waterborne floating island using a pumice layer below the ground. That got me thinking about the...
So I was deciding on ways to end my world in a futuristic scenario, and I had an idea. As we all know, Earth has two poles, and these poles are moving constantly (Magnetic Poles are different from ...
A key part of the plot in a story I'm working on revolves around the main region being on top of volcano that is set to erupt. The trouble is that the region in question in my setting is roughly th...
Was there a geological era in which the rain on earth was harmless and with the same temperature of the water in a hot shower?
For story reasons, I'd like one planet habitable, plausible, but in some noticeable way older than Earth. Just not all planets are 4,5 bilion years. Tidally locked planet that orbit red dwarf, save...
There was a question on here a while ago about lighting a massive Dyson sphere, that has gotten me to thinking. Obviously, such an item needs some unobtainium to build, but ignore that. I'm figur...
Introduction: I've spent some fair amount of time thinking about inventing an element to make part of my world easier for me. In this case, it is an LTA gas which I gave the WIP name LAL-gas (Leich...
Tolkien wrote on The Silmarillion about Tol Eressea, an island that the vala Ulmo (a god-like figure) used to ferry the elves back and forth across the sea into the Western lands. José Saramago al...
I made a map of the tectonic plates for my planet and then assigned each of them a direction. So as the question title says, what geographic features occur at each type of plate boundary? Also to ...
Back home and in this alternate scenario, the Ozarks are all that remains of a Proterozoic mountain range hundreds of millions of years ago. Back home, the Ozarks look like this, highlit in lime: ...
I want to have an Earth like planet, but with most of the continents having very little flatland. Thus continents would be covered mostly by hills and mountains. I want the rest of the planet to be...
Had a random thought. I was wondering if a uranium deposits underwater could result in radiotrophic plants or bacteria to sustain an ecosystem. One issue with this, is radiation has very short att...
I need a planet that is a combination of chlorine world and vitriolic world. The planet is extremely hot and under high pressure, covered in oceans of pure sulfuric acid and a chlorine/fluorine atm...
Setting A binary planet system consisting of two terrestrial planets (hereafter Alpha/α and Beta/β). The system barycentre (C) is between the two planets; for the sake of this question the exact...
How fast does the Earth's core rotate currently, and what would happen if its speed of rotation were to increase dramatically?
This question concerns this Alternative Earth. To make a certain fictional country which occupies the northern part of Russia more interesting, I want to make agriculture feasible in Siberia and t...
I'm building a post-apocalyptic setting where the cataclysmic event is a volcanic eruption from Yellowstone that releases a blanket of ash that reaches from California to just before the Midwest. E...
For story reasons I'd like to have a mine which exploited part was turned in to a nuclear shelter, for the city built above. Later, the nuclear shelter was utilized effectively as an district of ci...
This question is basically related to my former question: What would change if our Earth lacked mountains? (Geology) So in my world people have stopped at a level of wisdom that might be similar t...
I am currently at the end of my wits. No matter what change I do to the North American geography, northeastern Nebraska (42.4649° North, 96.4131° West), is still in the danger zone called Tornad...
This is the map of our Permian from 300 to 252 million years ago: As you can see, (nearly) all of the continents had joined together to create one massive landmass called Pangaea. To the sharp ...
Anyone who has a well-versed background in geology will know that the rock of the continents is granite. It forms as lava cools down very slowly, creating large minerals and crystals that shield...
North America's largest and perhaps most popular volcano is the plume of mantle situated right beneath the surface of what we arbitrarily call Yellowstone National Park. This image shows the two...
After reading a couple dozen entries about rogue planets and their implications (for those unaware, a rogue planet is a planetary mass that has been separated from the star by gravitational instabi...
You see this little planet? Is a planet roughly the size of earth, just slightly smaller circumference by 50 kilometers and a smaller gravity of 0.8g with little variations around the world, just l...
I'm developing a semi-realistic game involving stereotypical dwarves digging into mountainsides and carving out grand caverns for themselves, similar to those in Moria or the Lonely Mountain from T...
What if there was an alternate earth where there was no landmass between North America and South America. For clarification, in place of Central America there would be a sunken land bridge at the d...
Let's say that a "terraformable planet" is a planet who : is in the goldilock zone of its star(s) has around the same gravity as Earth has a solid surface covered with minerals not too toxic for...
The setting is basically earth. Our planet is unfortunately on a collision course with a large asteroid. However, humans have discovered and decoded a message from an ancient, advanced alien race (...
I have created a map of an island and was wondering if it is possible for a forest with a similar climate to that of a jungle to have a rain cloud above it 24/7 on this island? Edit* On my island...
Are there any crystal that is: insoluble in water and other common liquids does not melt or become chemically altered in most scenarios can be synthesized at relatively low temperatures (less tha...
I have a rocky world where land-based vegetation like grass or trees are either very rare and restricted to small and rare areas or non-existent. Rather, vegetation has stayed in the oceans and dev...
In my made up world, I have an onyx coloured river but I am not sure if it would work. Edit* I want to have black water where the river used to be an old lava bed so the lava rock at the bottom ...
In my world, a 16 year old boy has gained ghost-like properties, invisible to the naked eye and able to flit through objects as if they were not there. Like a man trapped in a room with an endless ...
I know that rivers do not usually split but they can. e.g. It can occur due the glacial shift. Are there any other ways that this could happen? And if it did would one river become dominant a ...
This is the Alps back home, cornering the Italian Peninsula and dominating the nations of Switzerland and Austria. The tallest, Mont Blanc, stands 15,780 feet above sea level. In this alternate...
For the sake of convenience, this happens on Earth. However, in this scenario only the American continent (all of it) is inhabited. One of the countries is experimenting with extremely advanced an...
On Earth, there are geothermal vents - heat coming from underground vents that support life at the bottom of the ocean where the sun cannot reach. My question is, would this be possible to support...
Say, if I detonate a ridiculously large nuke on this side of the Earth, is it possible that the shock wave travels through the center of the Earth and create an earthquake on the other side? If yes...
A volcanic island can obviously come into existence quite easily and swiftly by natural causes, as evidenced for instance by the appearance of Surtsey off the coast of Iceland. However, people have...
Everybody, even those who are complete beginners in the field of Astronomy, know Io, the cryovolcanic moon of Jupiter that looks like a burned pizza with skin cancer. Volcanoes constantly spit out ...
As usual, another interesting scientific question, taken from /r/worldbuilding. Would it mean any difference for a desert, where the amount of threatened objects is so low? Or would it form the ge...
As the title says... What would be the effect to earth or an oceanic planet if it lacks the presence of Radioactive Elements in its crust and mantle. Also can you explain what would happen if we d...
Let's say a hole about the size of the Kola Superdeep Borehole spaced about every five miles across the continent of Australia. Assume no human interaction after initial placement Answers prefe...
Ordinary granite is a tough rock"”the toughest on planet Earth"”but it still cracks easily, exposing it to the wrath of erosion. But the granite that makes up the Yosemite landscape is different. ...
