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Thread: Introduction and first maps

  1. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by landorl View Post
    This is a new map showing the general lines of the major faults in the world. the red lines mark the faults. I have put an arrow showing the general drift of the plates. In general everything is drifting away from a central range of mountains that mark the spine of the world. I have placed in a blue line where the deepest ocean trenches would be, and in a brown line (which is hard to see) where some undersea mountain ridges would be.

    I am not sure that the trenches are in the right location though. I don't know exactly which side of the fault that a trench would form on.
    What RPMiller said! Also when two plates are sliding past each other, you have a fault zone (earthquakes and the like) but tend not to get mountains or canyons forming.

    A good (but somewhat simple explanation) is here: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/tecmech.html

    In most current theories (afaik) a planet will start up with one big "land mass"/"hight spot" as it cools, near the equator, due to centripetal force and tidal actions of the sun/moons. This one mass will start to fracture into various plates due to convection currents in the aesthenosphere, pumped by radioactive decay.

    I am not sure how you came up with your continent layout, but it could be tricky to apply a techtonic model to something not started with one. I am not sure if any of the "world building" softwares support a plate tectonic model, as the (free/demo) ones I have played with tend to use things like ridged multifractals, plasma models or the like.

    -Rob A>

  2. #12
    Guild Artisan landorl's Avatar
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    So, actually, what I kind of need is everything slowly drifting in towards the center, with the outer plates moving at a slightly faster speed. The outer plates would push down creating a trench on the outer side of the fault, and mountains on the inner side as the other plate is forced up.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by landorl View Post
    So, actually, what I kind of need is everything slowly drifting in towards the center, with the outer plates moving at a slightly faster speed. The outer plates would push down creating a trench on the outer side of the fault, and mountains on the inner side as the other plate is forced up.
    yeah - kind of like a "when plates collide thing".

    Actually, I did a bit of googleing, and realized the wikipedia entry is pretty good too- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics

    It shows clearly that you can have more than one "land mass" per plate. For example, earth's "North America plate" contains North America, Iceland, and a good chunk of Siberia.

    Also, remember this process cycles endlessly, so a seemingly inexplicable mountain range (old and worn, that is) can always be blamed on a previous plate collision/fusing, suck as our earth's Ural mountains.

    -Rob A>

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