Thread: Lake going over a cliff

There are plenty of rationalizations for this sort of thing, althought the industrious beavers sound best to me. it would all depend on setting. Going outside of purely nature, a magical or high tech culture could certainly produce such a thing and nature with the aid of magic/magic material. It could easily be an "ancient wonder of the world" where an ancient culture assisted nature to create something spectacular, and it leaves the current residents in awe.

This is some fantastic information here.

The infinity pool idea is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking. A huge, mellow lake that spills over the side of an island's cliffs. However, it seems like no matter what we're talking a bout a river here, not a lake or slow-moving shallow body of water, especially one that's relatively free of sediment. That's fine. It just means I'll have to split the two ideas, so I'll have a very wide river going over a basalt lip or using the travertine process causing a looooong waterfall over the edge of a cliff, and then I'll have a very shallow lake elsewhere on the map. It's not exactly what I had in mind, but I'd rather it make some geological sense. Then again, maybe I'll still find a way to make it work, but right now I'm leaning towards "no".

Korash, I do like your idea, but it's not what's going on in my story.

Any more thoughts on this thread are still appreciated!

Thanks.

Originally Posted by mozltovcoktail

Korash, I do like your idea, but it's not what's going on in my story.

*sniff sniff* You have different thoughts than me! How could you??!!......

just joking Mozltov Like I said in my post it was just the idea that first struck me. Your story, your world , your map, so do it the way you want to. I take no offence when my suggestions and advice are not taken....how can I when most of the time I don't even follow my own.....I just like putting ideas out there.

I really like that infinity pool idea too.

Maybe I'll just make a smaller infinity pool somewhere...

Bringing up Niagara Falls was a good point, but I'll also point this out: a HUGE project was undertaken (quite literally stopping the flow of the falls) in order to bolster the earth along the falls. This was because so much earth was eroding that it was changing the appearance of the falls, and since it had become a huge landmark, NY and Ontario took an, "OH MY GOD, SAVE IT FROM CHANGING!" approach. Now, it still has erosion, but it's considerably slowed to the point where it doesn't really matter much by comparison.

What about having a huge dam that just lets water flow over? It could've been build by some civilization long since gone and it's one of the only remnants of their existence. But what a remnant! It was crafted with such skill and ability that people now don't even know how to make it work. So instead of the floodgates opening to release water, it just spills over the top. Is it magical? Is it purely a technological achievement the likes of which we've never seen? Is it some combination? Who knows! That opens the doors to huge (and fun!) possibilities.

Dude! You're in my brain! That just. Might. Work!

Mwahaha! There's a lot of places to run with something like that, and it'd be a huge amount of intrigue for anyone exploring that world.

Also, if it's a dam, you could easily have a broad, shallow lake behind it. Then, for greater effect, say they built the wall out of mithril reinforced glass and you also have a conflict, with industrious beaver people petitioning the local elves to dig out the mithril wires.

"Hey, we're only going to remove 25-30% of the mithril TOPS, it's ABSOLUTELY not going to impact the stability of the damn. We've done calculations that back this up! Trust us! What could go wrong? Plus, we'll pay you a 10% tax on all the mithril we dig out of your ancestors' dam! Think of all the trees you could plant with that!"

I remember an episode of "Life Without People", which was a cool series about how the man-made environment would decay if people were suddenly to disappear. It was amazing how relatively quickly our technological achievements would crumble given enough time and neglect. Nature slowly but surely reclaims the land. It was surmised that after 10,000 years, nothing made by man would survive. If aliens were to land after 10,000 years of man's absence there would be no trace of us, except...maybe...
the pyramids of Egypt, which would be half buried and eroded by the sands of the desert...
Mount Rushmore...
and Hoover Dam.