Reply With QuoteInteresting. I'm diggin the craters.
WIP Map of Terraformed Mars.
Hello everyone.
I am creating a map of a Terraformed mars, for use as the setting for a science-fantasy game where Mars was terraformed, but then space-faring civilization collapsed and it's been left to it's own devices for 2 million years. I've done a lot of research into climate models, current conditions and predicted conditions on Mars, the effects of lower gravity on air pressure, etc. I've got some hand-drafted maps finished based on the USGS maps available online. I've pretty much figured out what the planet will look like; the worldbuilding is pretty much done. Where I'm running into issues is in creating digital versions of the map. Mostly, I'm trying to figure out a nice graphical representation of the different biomes that isn't photorealistic, but is more visually interesting than a blob of color with "Jungle" written over it. I'd like general critique and questions, as well as specific advice on how to add things to my map like jungles and deserts that fit the style I've got going.
The first drawing is the scan of my hand-drafted map. The Biomes are color coded. I've lost the key, but I know what most of the colors are intended to mean. Different greens are Tropical, subtropical, and temperate rainforests, temperate dry forests, and the darkest is coniferous alpine forests. The brightest orange is desert, followed by dark tan for scrubland, light tan for steppes, and yellow for grasslands. Pink is martian alpine desert, and light blue is swamp.
The second drawing is my current digital version. I have the water mapped out, and the different major elevations. Each contour on this map represents 2 km, which also represents a 5 degree celcius drop in average temperature. Above the second contour the air is as thin as in Tibet, and is difficult for humans to breathe. Deeper color means higher altitude. This is what I want to put Biome information on, without compromising the simple, clean look I've got going.
Interesting. I'm diggin the craters.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
see post #6
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...l=1#post256173
i posted a map that was used in a few things on the Discovery Chanel / Science Chanel shows
do to the lack of an ACTIVE magnetic field the atmosphere would only stay at near earth like( well 1 to 2 miles up on Earth) pressure for about 50,000 years
that is once it was in place it will NOT last long in geological time scales
--- 90 seconds to Midnight ---
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--- Penguin power!!! ---
So the magnetic-lack factor just means your ancient terraforming needs more technobabble and geologic hand-wavium incorporated. Saaaaaay, there's a metallic core that just needed to be melted and set to spinning nicely again. And/or tailored vulcanism that leaks needed atmo gases continually. And/or the original terraforming was to a vastly different/denser state than modern Earth - such that in 2 million years it's leaked down to an earth-like set of specifications. And/or a set of feeder comets was set into collision courses way back when, such that a load of new atmo gases gets violently added to the ecosystem every few tens of thousands of years. And/or the 2Myr-ago sea level was multiple kilometers higher, and the seawater is continually being made into atmosphere. And/or there's a totally artificial retaining field set up that holds in gases without needing a natural magnetic field.
Any one of those or a dozen other situations would generate a wealth of new story elements for your people to deal with.
You may notice a series of lines and nodes on the map. These are the vertices and edges of a dodecahedral overlay on the globe. The Terraformers created 20 giant generators at these vertices, which both provided power and an artificial magnetic field that prevented the atmosphere from leaving. The lines between them are locations of significant power flow. In technobabble-magic terms, these are the Ley Lines of Mars.
That is, when they were fully functioning. Their self-repair mechanisms worked for a good long time, but Entropy always wins. They still provide a lot of available power to those who know how to tap into them, but they are failing at their primary function. Mars is currently in the process of losing it's atmosphere as described.
Last edited by TheAnarchitect; 12-30-2014 at 12:01 PM.
John, your map was one of the ones I used as a reference when I started this project. I'm grateful you've chosen to respond.
How did you decide where to put vegetation? What techniques did you use to paint that vegetation onto your map?
What effect does the magnetic field have on the atmosphere persistence? I was under the impression that gravity (and therefore escape velocity) was the major factor in how long an atmosphere lasted on a planet. The stronger the gravity, the smaller the atoms/molecules it can hold on to ... the main reason that Earth has almost no hydrogen in its atmosphere, but lots of nitrogen and oxygen, because H2 is light enough to escape whereas nitrogen and oxygen do not easily attain escape velocity.Originally Posted by johnvanvliet
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast121/lectures/lec14.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
Yes you were right. Gravity is by far the most important factor.
However the magnetic field shields a planet from the solar Wind and the solar Wind would ionize and erode the atmosphere if the magnetic field was not present.
For instance the thin Mars atmosphere is supposed to be due to the solar Wind erosion because Mars has no magnetic field.
Of course we are talking billions of years here.
On the other hand Venus has no magnetic field either and keeps its dense atmosphere even after 4 billions of years.
Earth being the same size (so same gravity) as Venus, the loss of its magnetic field would probably have a negligible effect on the atmosphere.
So one basically needs a very small planet (Mars sized or smaller) with no gaz emission processes (vulcanism etc) to see an effect of the lack of the magnetic field after a few billions of years.
Actually a civilisation and many forms of life could be killed by hard radiations that would get to the surface if the magnetic field was absent, much much faster and before anybody would notice any effect on the atmosphere.
I'm curious how you've defined the coastlines. Did you just pick a value and say "everything lower than this is water, everything higher land"? I ask because, while I can buy Hellas as a sea, I'm less convinced about Argyre, and their coastlines look suspiciously close to the same altitude as the northern seacoast. (And there is, of course, no reason for the altitudes of disconnected coastlines to be the same.)
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