Tilted Earth Reconstruction by Depperoni
Hello everyone!
This is the world I've been working on for some time now. I have tilted the existing Earth 30° and redrew the grid in google earth and then the coast lines onto Joshua's Usable Mollweide Projection Grid. I drew Greenland and Antarctica from deglaciated maps for better reconstruction.
The next step is to add elevation both terrestial and marine. After that persistent winds and ocean currents to reconstruct biozones.
I am mostly interested in learning about physical and biological geography and evolution by reconstructing it on this map, but it could set the stage for a good fictional world.
The (still vague) idea I have is to reconstruct the life in this world after a mistery event that both tilted the planet and wiped out most of human kind. The few survivors left in several refuges here and there would spawn both new wild human species and some cultures capable of rebuilding the biosphere faster then has ever happened before after a mass extinction, owing to the human skill of cultivation. By 50 000 to a 100 000 years in the future, with some ups and downs along the way, this population should have the planet up and running again on a level comparable to today or even slightly further (maybe with limited space travel confined to the solar system.)
With this time scale in mind, tectonics would only have advanced the continental drift by 15 km at best, so I have omitted tectonic advancement on purpose. Changes in sea levels, glaciation, rivers, erosion, deposits and human intervention will change the landscape drastically enough.
My current estimates are that this geography will favor greater glaciation, a drop in sea levels and massive deserts, but some regions will still feature rain forests or grassy plains. The new geography of the former Arctic Ocean should lead to enormous fertility, capable of sustaining an impressive marine food web.
I have all ready put some thought into a global evolution involving the descendants of modern human. Eventhough at this time our species may be harmfull to the environment, I also believe we have the abilty to rebuild the world after catastrophy has struck, in unprecedented ways. At least a lot faster than the time it took non-human nature to rebound from the KPg- or PT-events, baring in mind that an extinction event, even on the scale of the PT-event, would leave many tens of thousands of people and their pets, livestock and crops alive world wide. Add human inginuity and you'll have the biosphere up to modern levels in an evolutionary blink of an eye.
This is both the key and the challenge to this scenario. It will be very hard to find the right amount of extinction and hardship to, on one hand, not wipe out life on Earth entirely, yet on the other hand, challenge the descendants of modern humans and affiliated species enough to evolve into something awesome.
If necessary, I could always throw in some magical radiation, that causes awesome mutations instead of cancer, but somehow I'd rather do it the hard way. Involving even low amounts of magic would kinda beat the purpose of an exploratory reconstruction.
Yet, at this point I still have my hands full on the physical geography of this world. Sometimes it feels like to much for one person to handle.
Some examples of things I haven't been able to figure out yet are the ocean currents in the former Indian ocean, especially around India and between Australia and Antarctica. The Tibetan Plateau lying smack on the equator could also have some weird atmospheric effects for which I have nothing to refer to.
So any advice or help is very very welcome.
If anyone can tell me how to post a kmz-file on this forum, I'll upload the grid I made in Google-Earth too.
Well ... why not make the catastrophe the same thing that tilted the earth in the first place? A big enough meteor might be able to do both ... well, maybe not (as I'm neither geologist nor astrophysicist), but it's plausible enough for fiction imho.
Yeah, I thought about that one too. A flyby of an enormous meteorite maybe, or some other gravitational anomaly. Any impact that would be big enough to tilt the planet this much, would sterilize the surface though.
I'm considering keeping it a mistery all together. This'll allow me to tweak the pattern of extinction a lot easier, omit traces like craters or disrupted orbits and just focus on the reconstruction. I'm looking many tens of thousands of years later anyway and whatever did it, was only a rough plot device. In say 50 000 years even something causing only a gradual change over time could have had this impact. It may actually be a fun challenge to keep the cause open for others to figure out
One thing to think about is changes in winds. Not sure though how much it would affect the climat system. An exemple is the wind between the 40th and 50th parallel south (Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties). In your map there is now antartica stopping the "draught".
Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars...
That is exactly what I'm focussing on now!
Indeed the flow surrounding and isolating Antarctica now is interrupted in the Tilted Earth, which could actually result in a more efficient energy transport to the South Pole, thawing this side of the planet.
One thing I'm not sure about is the energy balance around the Southern tip of Africa. As long as the ocean currents can go over it, they may protect Southern Africa against Polar air masses. Turn down the temperature a little bit, the currents get blocked and you might be looking at an African iceage. At the tipping point, you could have a surprising climate in Southern Africa, with warm wet summers and very cold dry winters. In any case, it will make all the difference for Madagascar.
At the same time the former warm Gulf Stream is pressed Southwards by the tilted North American continent, forcing it along a far longer route to Siberia. On one hand it is stuck in the roaring forties, which would result in a stronger current and more severe Westerly storms, stimulating a good marine climate around it on the American and Eurasian continents. On the other hand, by the time it reaches Siberia, it has been in colder lattitudes for so much longer than the actual Gulf Stream, that it might not be as efficient in warming the place up enough for a temperate climate, resulting rather in a subpolar marine climate.
Adding to this, that in the Tilted Earth, the South Pole is mostly marine and the North Pole mostly terrestial, this geography seems to result in a cold Northern hemisphere Vs. a warmer Southern hemisphere. This part of the reconstruction is also very interesting for exploring the thermohaline circulation theory and it's effect on the global climate.
An interesting experiment. I fear you know more than me, so I will just kick back and watch, LOL. The affect currents could be staggering. So many things going on in that map. Can't wait to see more!
Upon the Creation of the World the First Dragons cast their seed in the light of a Sun and a Thousand Suns, beneath the Moon and a Thousand Moons, on a World and a Thousand Worlds.
www.sistercontinents.com
I have an idea! What if I start reconstructing from an iceage, take this as a starting point?
An iceage is common to follow on an apocalyps. This will take away most of the problem of rebounding lands in Greenland and Antarctica. Besides, the glaciers may carve out a cool landscape in Southern Africa and North America.
Once I have the glacial ocean currents and winds designed and have the surviving human and wild life regroup in some refuges, I can look for a positive feedback loop to break the iceage, have another climatic change into a more temperate interglacial as a second survival barrier and see what'll happen from there.
This way I'll have the first several thousand years worked out, add some history, some evolutionary challenges and the actual world (also in an interglacial) as an examplar.
Anywayz, I still have to draw the elevation map, so I'll get to that first
Oh I can't wait to start reconstructing the new glaciers.
What a little bit of colour can do:
Looking cool!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks
I've almost got the continental shelves ready, so the elevation map is underway...
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
