My Mountains Have Fallen and They Can't Get Up

[Juggernaut1981]

Okay, from what you've drawn... (and my moderately better than high-school understanding of the vagaries of plate techtonics)
I'd expect to see a chain of islands potentially occuring between A & B.
B, C & H should be creating some SERIOUSLY tall mountains.
There will be limited mountains between B & D (they're passing plates)
F & I might actually be one plate (they're basically moving together)
F & G won't be likely to have mountains between them.

[2cents] My thoughts...
I would merge F, G & I into one plate subducting under D & H.
I'd probably have E crashing a little harder into D.
[/2cents]
Seems good, but hey feel free to adjust my ideas to better suit yours.

[Porklet]

Okay, from what you've drawn... (and my moderately better than high-school understanding of the vagaries of plate techtonics)
I'd expect to see a chain of islands potentially occuring between A & B.
B, C & H should be creating some SERIOUSLY tall mountains.
There will be limited mountains between B & D (they're passing plates)
F & I might actually be one plate (they're basically moving together)
F & G won't be likely to have mountains between them.

[2cents] My thoughts...
I would merge F, G & I into one plate subducting under D & H.
I'd probably have E crashing a little harder into D.
[/2cents]
Seems good, but hey feel free to adjust my ideas to better suit yours.

When you're in the dark there is no such thing as bad feedback, thanks.

There is an island chain between A & B. You just can't see it, because of my massive red pen stroke when drawing the plate borders.

The mountains between B, C, & H are the home of the gods. The actual home of the gods. No beast or man or man-beast could ever survive there. That's the working theory for the moment, although it isn't final. At least in religious terms it will be considered the home of the gods by some (if not actually). I am going to stop before I confuse myself, again. Aside from that, I want it to be a massive physical and cultural barrier. Mission Accomplished.

The ranges between B & D are the result of previous collision (along with F & G). They are not colliding anymore, but the ranges remain. I am toying with removing some ranges and making them fit better. See my reply above to Hawksguard for more details, if you want.

I am not opposed to combining F & I. Whatever the case I need to fix the border between F & G and remove that concave portion. I don't think a plate of that shape could exist. I might be wrong. I'll toy around with it when I fix F.

Noted above, F & G were once colliding (along with B & D). They have since divorced, and they have joint custody of the kids, er, mountain ranges. F & D were colliding together with at least G (if not B & G); in theory.

I need the mountains along G (created by previous collision with F). If I combine F, G, and I...I won't get the mountains there that I want. The problem is I am reverse engineering the plate tectonics to match a mountain configuration that was already in place. I have made significant changes already, but I don't want to sacrifice too much of the original.

You are absolutely right about D and E. The original design of the land mass on D was basically a circle of mountains (not really but close enough to be impossible under natural law). I wanted mountains along as many sides as possible there. I can't believe I missed that opportunity. Thanks. I'll repost a fix below. Thanks again, again.

[cantab]

You've got the basics right. A maximum of three plate boundaries meet at a point, which is correct, and it's nice to see hotspots taken into account.

A first tip: colour-coding your boundaries depending on whether they're ridges, trenches/collisions, or transform/strike slip faults will make the map easier to interpret.

Can I assume your reference frame - the thing that you consider "still" and measure your plate motions from - is the hotspots? (A sensible choice.)

A few points:

If you're going to show plate boundaries in your final map, you may want to think about their shapes. Ridges in particular have a distinctive "stepped" shape, as segments of ridge proper are offset by transform (strike-slip) faults. You can see that here: http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/4_3_1_0.html The ridges should be at right-angles, and the transforms parallel, to the plate motion.

Trenches can be straight, they can follow a continental edge, or they can have an arced shape with the subducting plate on the convex side. It's OK to have quite oblique subduction.

Transform faults are typically straight. They can have bends in them though. These bends give either "pull apart basins" or "push up mountains". You have an example of the latter on the B-D boundary.

You could eliminate the F-I boundary. If you keep it, either make one plate moving faster, or make it a very slowly spreading ridge. (Subduction zones don't tend to go slowly). Similar for A-E.

You have more large transform boundaries than are on Earth. (I have the same issue with my own WIP tectonics-based map.) The E-F, F-G, and G-K boundaries in particular seem a bit strange. However, if you meet either of the two "growing" cases here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfo...rm_fault_types then you can justify those big transforms.

A plateau somewhere next to the B-C-H mountain range wouldn't be unreasonable (much like the Tibetan plateau).

I might expect some clearer island chains from hotspots (like the famous Hawaii chain). Not all hotspots produce such neat chains, but many do. The biggest island, and the volcanically active one, is over the hotspot, with progressively older and (generally) smaller islands extending away in the direction of the plate's motion.