Eurydice

[Zirojtan]

Hello everyone, I'm Zirojtan/Nate, and I'm new to the forum.


I haven't been posting this week cuz I couldn't figure out how to upload my map to the forum to get some feedback, and I've also been a little preoccupied the past couple of days working on my altitude map for the world that this thread is about.


So without further ado, let's just get straight to the point...


Eurydice Today Altitudes.png
Altitude Map Legend.png


This map is a map of Eurydice, which is the conworld that I've been working on for the past couple of years for a book series that I'm writing. I'm a very detail oriented person, and so I've been fussing over this map for the better part of 2 years, and a few months ago decided that I was going to map out the world from 380 million years before the books take place until today. The reason being that although the novels are fantasy novels, it will be very explicitly outlined in them that the animals featured in the world are NOT anything that you'd find on Earth, although they are similar. The story of life on the planet is explained in the Creation Myth though and we can get to that later. The above map is an unfinished altitude map that I've drawn up on Microsoft Paint. It's definitely been a process over the past week to just get THIS far, but I feel that it's definitely worth it as it is already telling me a LOT about the world that I didn't previously know for sure with my limited knowledge of climatology. The image below it is a legend showing you the color scheme.


Before you say it, I know that the colored altitudes cover a very wide array of different altitudes as it varies regularly between 1,000 - 1,500 ft. in difference of color, but sometimes as much as 5,000 ft. in the highest altitudes (the highest point on the world is just over 35,000 ft.). I thought that it would save time this way, but if I have offended the gods of altitude mapping, I apologize.


Anyways, as you can see, I've been working primarily on just the two continents. The white lines that you see on the other continents are possible areas of high elevation according to the tectonic map that I made the other day, which itself is probably going to be adjusted, and so I won't post it just yet.


So now that you've seen a pretty picture, and have a fair idea what's going on with the altitudes of at least one of the continents (mind you, it's definitely not finished), here is the planetary information:


Name of Planets: Eurydice
Distance from Star: 1.6776 AU
Length of Year: 2.001 Earth Years
Number of 24 hr days:
Number of 62 hr days: 282.75 (every four years is a leap year by 3 days)
Radius in km: 6405 km
Axial Tilt: 25
Mass: 6.60385e24 kg (1.1055 E mass)
Volume: 1.1006e12 km (1.01609 Earths)
Density in Grams: 6 g/cm3
Diameter: 12810
Surface Area: 515.9
Roche Limit: 1700
Gravity: 1.09487 Gs
Orbit Velocity: 8.29 km per second
Thrust to Orbit Time at 3G: 7.3
Escape Velocity: 11.7 km per second
Geosynchronous Orbital Distance: 75780 (from surface of planet)
Geosynchronous Orbital Velocity: 2.31 km per second


It is also important to note that Eurydice has no moons, but instead is tidally locked to another planet called Deianira, and so here is Deianira's info:


Name of Planet: Deianira
Distance from Star: 1.6776 AU
Length of Year: same as Eurydice
Number of 24 hr days: same as Eurydice
Number of 62 hr days: same as Eurydice
Radius in km: 6760.26
Axial Tilt: same as Eurydice
Mass: 8.412e24 kg (1.4085 Earth masses)
Volume: 1.294e12 km3 (1.195 Earth volumes)
Density: 6.5
Gravity: 12.282 N/kg (1.252 Gs)
Escape Velocity in km per Second: 12.886 km/s
Geosynchronal Orbital Distance: 89,238 km
Geosynchronal Orbital Velocity: 2.508 km/s
Mean Kelvin Temperature:
Atmosphere Composition:
Orbital Eccentricity: 0.01


Now, I stupidly misplaced the distance between the two planets in one of my documents here, so I'm afraid we'll have to do without that at the moment. Just suffice it to say that they're fairly distance from each other, orbiting a barycenter between the two of them. The star that they both orbit, Radegast, is a class F8 star. Here is ITS info:


Name: Radegast
Spectral Class: F8
Mass: 1.190
Radius: 1.260
Surface Temperature: 6200 K
Luminosity: 1.93
Habitable Zone: 0.9797 AU-2.438 AU


There are a couple of things that I'm really wondering about here.


1. The overall climate of the planet.
2. The climate type of a specific area of the planet in which the story of my book series is going to take place.


As far as the overall climate of the planet is concerned, my friend, who helped me out with obtaining all of those numbers for describing the astronomical information of the planet and those things that immediately affect it in its solar system (the star, obviously, and Deianira) has told me that even though the star that Eurydice is orbiting is brighter, its distance from it would make the planet rather cold unless we were to at least double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. As I'm going for present day Earth-like temperatures, or something similar, doubling the CO2 content of the atmosphere seems perfectly reasonable to me. However the idea that the planet was in an interglacial period of an ice age just seemed natural to me earlier today when I was making the map before he and I started talking because this is what we are in here on Earth right now, and so I tore up some of the northern coastlines of the continent that I've been working on where I thought glaciation was likely to have occurred. Then it occurred to me to have a discussion with him about whether or not he thought that Eurydice is even likely to be as climatically fragile as Earth due to its differing astronomical and atmospheric conditions.


He said, based on the fact that the planet is farther away from its sun and the increased CO2 content of the atmosphere that it would be likely that the planet is much less climatically fragile, and probably the in a state similar to our own Pliocene, albeit with a stable trend as opposed to a cooling one.


I'm not really a climatologist, but the increased CO2 reducing climatic variability seemed to make sense to me...


So there's that, and then this specific area of the world that the books take place in, so let me upload an image of the planet with that area circled...


Highlighted Area.png


Ok, so the area circled there in purple is where the books take place. Based on the altitudes already shown and the position of the continents, what are the rough estimates that you guys can give for the general environment of that area?


I really don't mind if the area is dry, but I don't want it to be as dry as Iran. A really dry arctic waste doesn't appeal to me either, as the area is supposed to densely populated. I can do wet, but if too wet, like Seattle/Vancouver area wet I'm not really sure about either. Something like New England would be ok with me.


I also understand it's a large geographic area and that you guys don't have the depth of the sea to work with to determine how ocean currents are going to work, but I'm just looking for a rough estimate now so that I can make any changes I need to before I'm extremely deep into the process of this altitude map.


Anyways, any help that any of you can offer would be fantastic. This is my first time undertaking anything this detailed and it's pretty difficult, to say the least. I hope to hear from you guys soon.

[Azélor]

Your map look good. Even if I dont really like the color palette (i think it could be improved a bit by lowering the saturation of some colors) I do like all the details you took the time to add to the map and the world in general.

But I just need to say and correct me if I misread you, but I think Eurydice should be orbiting around Deianira since they are so close to each other and the latter is more massive. I'm no expert but if I remember, if Eurydice is inside of Deianira hill sphere, she should become a satelite.

[Zirojtan]

Thank you very much


I think that the difference in mass is too small for Eurydice to be a satellite of Deianira, but even if what you said is true, I can make the necessary changes to retain the duel-planet system.


And to be perfectly honest, I'm not crazy about the color scheme either. It just kind of... happened, I guess. I just whipped up random colors on Microsoft Paint. I'm too far into it to run around changing it now though. It is what it is. After all, it's just an altitude map.

[Lingon]

Those continent shapes are fantastic…! A very, very good looking world
As for the climate in that area, It depends on where the ocean winds come from most often. The mountains block the winds, causing most of the rain to fall on one side. So it can be either dry, wet, or seasonal, whichever fits the story

[Zirojtan]

Thanks


I spent about a week fleshing the shapes out with the pencil tool.... lol. It was pretty tedious work.


Let me post what I have for the tectonic map at the moment, do try to excuse my crude arrows....


Eurydice Today Tectonic Plates.png


It also is not quite done as I haven't figured out the directions of all the different plates, but it looks like some of the highlands in that central continent will have to be changed. I had actually kind of imagined that as that one plat on the western half met the other one of the eastern have that they closed a sea that used to be there, possibly created some kind of an odd salt basin, like the Mediterranean Sea during the Messinian Salinity Crisis.

[Zirojtan]

Hey guys, sorry to double post in my own topic, but I'm actually having a little bit of a problem with this whole tectonic plates thing (the climate as well, as mentioned earlier), and it would be really nice if I could get some help. After doing some reading about it I decided that that crude map I have in the above post isn't going to cut it in that aspect, so I've come up with this one...


Eurydice Today Tectonic Plates.png


As you can see, I've been playing a little bit with the coastlines of two oft he continents, so ignore the sloppiness of the coloring there for the moment.


The thing I'm having them ost trouble with is that northern mountain range on the big Eurasia-like continent there, the problem being justifying its existence. I had kind of thought that it might have been formed by a process similar to how the Rockies were formed, and is now in the process of being weathered down. But to my knowledge, the Rocky Mountains were formed by two oceanic plates subducting under the North American Plate, a process which has left Western North America looking quite a bit different than any part of the northren portion of the continent I have going there. I may not end up naming it this, but for convenience, let's just call this continent Júent.


Now, I really kind of like that possible little green seasonal patch I have right there that's created by the way the mountains block the rain, and how flat it is, so if we can avoid making any serious changes to the Northeastern Coast, that would be great. I know that there is kind of a sharp drop in the Rocky Mountains as they open up into the Great Plains, but I had envisioned that area having some kind of variation in elevation (as you can see with the mountains in the upside-down Sweden area). Perhaps if the oceanic plates that subducted did so on the other side of the continent? I would probably have to make some adjustments then to the coast though if I did that, and that would also kind of make the vast majority of the continent very mountainous, which isn't something I was initially going for.


Is there any other geologic process that anybody on here can think of that could render the current mountain configurations in the area? I can make the necessary changes int he tectonic plates if need be.


I was also concerned about the altitudes on that S-shaped continent, which I already know is called Drehu. As you can see, I have Drehu split into two separate tectonic plates, the southern one is moving northeast and so directly colliding with the oceanic plate there (I'm fairly sure that giant island is going to go), and the northern one is moving westward toward Júent. I think because of the shape there, that would create a transform boundary in the middle of the plateau I have up there, wouldn't it? Does anyone know how the transform boundary would interact with the mountains being pushed up by the subduction of that easterly oceanic plate? I'm fairly sure that I need to make some adjustments there to the altitudes and such, but I'm just not sure what they are.


One more thing is this island circled in pink...


ETTP.png


If it's on the same plate as Júent, I can't really think of a good reason for it to be where it is. Was Madagascar not once part of a different plate that has now merged with the African Plate, or am I confused? Cuz maybe something similar might have happened here?


Help would be greatly appreciated.


Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone, by the way


EDIT: Another problem would be that I have no idea how fast these plates are moving. From what I understand and the discussions that my very knowledgeable friend and I have had on this issue, the tectonic activity on Eurydice is actually increased because of the size of of the planet that it is tidally locked to. By how much tectonic activity and tidal activity and all of the other things that are normally affected by the pull of the moon are increased or changed I really have no idea, but I feel like it's probably relevant to this whole map making process...

[sangi39]

The above map is an unfinished altitude map that I've drawn up on Microsoft Paint.

All I can say to that is... well... WOW! So much detail out of something as simple as paint. I'm predominantly using paint myself while I try to come to grips with GIMP, so all I can really ask you is how did you manage to do this? It's amazing. The best I've managed is this.

[Zirojtan]

...so all I can really ask you is how did you manage to do this?

A LOT of patience. I'm just using the pencil and bucket tools, really. I use the pencil tool to draw rough lines and then tear up the coastlines and the altitude lines, really. It's really simple, it's just really, really time consuming. It was actually in looking at your thread about Yantas that I decided that the southern portion of Júent needs to fit more with the western portion of that central continent, and so I tried to get on GIMP and make the proper adjustments. GIMP is... very hard. lol.


But you seem to know your stuff about plate tectonics, at least to some degree, do you have any suggestions regarding the problems I'm having?

[sangi39]

A LOT of patience. I'm just using the pencil and bucket tools, really. I use the pencil tool to draw rough lines and then tear up the coastlines and the altitude lines, really. It's really simple, it's just really, really time consuming. It was actually in looking at your thread about Yantas that I decided that the southern portion of Júent needs to fit more with the western portion of that central continent, and so I tried to get on GIMP and make the proper adjustments. GIMP is... very hard. lol.

I may have to give that a try. I've tried using GIMP to add more detail the coasts, but I'm never entirely happy with the results, but I get the feeling a lot of that might be down to my general lack of experience with it.

But you seem to know your stuff about plate tectonics, at least to some degree, do you have any suggestions regarding the problems I'm having?

Well, I don't think I can safely say anything about Drehu, but I think I can help with a few other issues to some extent.

Let's go in order, so we'll start with the mountains of northern Júent. The two examples on Earth that I can think of that resemble these are the Ural Mountains and the Scandinavian Mountains. They're not, to the best of my knowledge, don't occur near any extant plate boundaries. However, if I remember correctly, they did form as the result of interactions between extinct plates in the past. The Scandinavian Mountains are remnants of the Caledonian mountains which formed from the collision of various plates which eventually drifted apart with the break-up of Pangea while the Urals result from the collision of plates which eventually fused.

They're not nearly as high as, say, the Andes or the Himalayas, with the highest point of the Urals being 1,895m and the highest mountain in Norway being 2469m as a result of hundreds of millions of years of erosion, which is around half of the height you currently have for your mountains, but at least it's something



As for the island off the coast of north-east Júent, I think your idea for its formation is pretty realistic. And I think you're right about Madagascar's formation, with it starting out as its own tectonic plate which eventually fused with the African Plate. I was actually going to mention it myself, but you mentioned it first, so there you go

[Zirojtan]

So I was writing a big old response to this comment along with an updated version of the map when I accidentally broke my laptop. I am now going to have to wait to do this until I can retrieve the data off the hard drive and get it onto this PC. This thing is so damn slow though...


So this might be on hold for a bit, but if it gets to be too long, I'm just going to take what I have off this topic and continue going on. Except, the document that has the color codes is also on the other hard drive, so... maybe not.