Setting a geologist loose in an MMO, part 2.
So... I'm done. It was less of a spurt of productivity and more of "I've had enough, I'm finishing college" So yesterday I did. There's still one more thing I need to print and get to a professor's mailbox, but I can do that later today at work.
As a result, I want to do a better version of my "WTF WoW geology" entry. I'll do one on Game of Thrones and how Westeros does/n't work. But since I'm three areas away from getting my World Explorer title on my main, and have as a result seen enough of how the world is put together, I think I'll do the intelligent version of this. My apologies for ridiculousness.
This is the map I've been working from. To the best of my knowledge, it is correct as of Cataclysm. I'm not even touching Outland; it's another planet and beyond the scope of this brainwandering.
My basic assumptions: Azeroth is about Earth size and density, with a similar atmosphere. Likely similar distance from its sun. It is more tectonically active overall. I honestly don't know how having two moons instead of one are likely to affect things- off the top of my head, I think it probably does something to the tides. But I'm too lazy to deal with that; I can come up with far more about the tectonics. I'm also assuming that Azeroth may be a bit younger than Earth, because tectonism is usually more active on a younger planet that has had less time to cool down fully.
Working off of the idea that Azeroth is both more tectonically active and has more tectonic plates, it makes sense to have continents composed of small terranes being pushed together, perhaps having not finished this process. We know that all of the continents were linked together in a supercontinent at one point, and split apart. This makes sense looking at the margins of all of the continents, and noting that along the eastern edge of Kalimdor and the western edge of the Eastern Kingdoms, there isn't much going on. Passive continental margins. And therefore we can assume that somewhere in the middle of the ocean there is a spreading zone.
The Eastern Kingdoms is already made of two separate continents, which are starting to collide. Continent-continent collision usually produces mountains and sometimes volcanism, and that would explain all of those mountains at the margin between the two continents. In general, the idea of Eastern Kingdoms being made out of small terranes that accrete together works well. The northern part hasn't changed much over the years, but the southern part has been a lot more active.
I think I've solved my rant about "WTF areas in the middle of the Eastern Kingdoms." Blackrock Depths is a volcano, known from lore. The whole area around Dun Morogh shows signs of past volcanic activity. For that matter, most of the Badlands-Burning Steppes-Searing Gorge area looks at least somewhat volcanic-influenced and is very dry in comparison to some of the stuff directly north of it. Just based on that, this looks like a volcanic hot-spot? Perhaps one related to the collision of the northern and southern parts. Collision produces uplift, but things get pushed down as well. Assuming that Azeroth's tectonics react something like Earth's, crustal material pushed down into the mantle will melt and rise as a plume. This plume starts hitting the continent above, starting with Dun Morogh (older volcanism) and starts to move, causing more active volcanism in the Badlands/Burning Steppes area.
Also, assuming collision and uplift explains Arathi Highlands, Twilight Highlands, and Wetlands. Arathi and Twilight are being pushed up, and some of this is extending to Wetlands. I'm not sure how it gets so warm, but I think there has to be some rainshadow in effect there, where Wetlands (low lying low latitude) is getting all of the moisture that isn't getting to more eastern areas. Arathi and Twilight are both being seriously uplifted by continental collision, which will eventually close the sea between them and result in high mountains and plateaus.
Stranglethorn is far enough south that it could easily be in a generally wet climate area, and if it's at mid to low latitude, that would explain why it's a jungle area. Also, the large mountains on the eastern side of Stranglethorn would work as a rain barrier, making the Blasted Lands a rainshadow desert. Even if it weren't for the Dark Portal opening and dumping demons into the area, I'd think that the mountains would make the area very prone to being a desert. Also, this would indicate that the whole southwestern corner of the Eastern Kingdoms is temperate and gets adequate rainfall. Good conditions for deciduous forests like in Elywnn Forest. Westfall is a bit dry, but still reasonably fits in.
It still kind of bothers me that Eversong Woods appears to have a warmer climate than Tirisfal Glades, judging by vegetation. Even altering the flat world map to fit on a globe, and assuming that there are other landmasses on the other side of Azeroth that we are not aware of, all of Eversong Woods should be at fairly high latitude and therefore a good deal colder than it seems. Based on this, I have to assume that there are ocean currents similar to the Gulf Stream that bring enough warm water to the Eastern Kingdoms to keep Eversong Woods much warmer than it should be. Using this assumption, this same current probably also keeps Howling Fjord a bit more habitable than it should be.
The map I'm working off of gives me the impression that Northrend is smallish. It's the Greenland phenomemon- the most common flat maps seen of Earth exaggerate Greenland's size a good deal, and I think the same thing happened to the map of Northrend. It's kind of annoying that Northrend is being depicted as the same size as some of the other continents, it takes a long time to fly around, but by my fuzzy little geologist's logic, I assume it's about the size of the northern half of Eastern Kingdoms. I assume this is not a north polar continent, but instead just at very high latitude. I do think I read somewhere in the lore that Azeroth has a north polar ice cap, and IIRC that's not Icecrown.
In looking at Northrend, I'm also forced to assume that the northern polar ice cap has a continent under it, due to the way Northrend looks tectonically. We do not see or hear anything of this continent because it is too far north to sustain life and covered in ice. Kind of like Antarctica. As a side note, it's not mentioned whether there is a southern polar ice cap or continent. We don't see enough of anything that far south to really make it relevant, though.
Problem: Sholazar Basin. Sholazar seems far too temperate to be at such high altitude, and I'd expect that any ocean current that can keep it that warm would also cause warming in the areas around it. But Icecrown is glaciated, and the Borean Tundra is just that. Tundra. Zul'Drak is appropriately cold for the latitude, but Sholazar isn't. It sounds like official sources are suggesting something volcanic is warming the area, but I honestly don't know enough about volcanic side effects to outright say that it'll produce a jungle. Just to shut myself up, I'll say that Sholazar has a nice offshore current keeping it warm, and geothermal heat from below has kept it very temperate.
Icecrown and Storm Peaks are easy. I assume that Northrend is the edge of a continent, and is colliding with an oceanic plate just north of it. This would be a source of geothermal heat for Sholazar, and collision would also drive Icecrown and Storm Peaks up. This produces large mountainous glaciated plateaus; Icecrown made me think of the Himalayas gone horribly wrong when I first flew in there. Northrend looks like it's had a lot of tectonics overall; the huge amounts of mountains make me think of lots of small terranes accreted all together. Most of the mountains aren't that high (indicating older tectonics), until you hit the Icecrown area, which is a plateau.
Most of the rest of Northrend makes perfect sense under this model. High latitude and there is a northern polar continent colliding. A current running along the southeastern edge, likely the same one that will go near Eversong Woods, keeps Howling Fjord somewhat warmer than the rest of the continent.
Kalimdor was fun. I think it's positioned at slightly lower latitude than the Eastern Kingdoms, making the southern edge drier and the continent as a whole somewhat warmer. Also, I'm inclined to think that Kalimdor is more tectonically stable than the Eastern Kingdoms, and is likely all on one large plate like Australia.
Un'Goro Crater is clearly a hot spot of volcanism. There is a volcano in the middle of the area, and the hot springs around (and just general look of the rocks) indicate volcanism. The shape of the zone looks something like possibly caldera volcanism, kind of like what's under Yellowstone. With that in mind, that would explain all of the large mountains around Un'Goro, as they are old caldera walls built up through several explosions.
The whole southern several zones of Kalimdor are very desert. I know that isn't grammatically correct, but you get the point. There are lots of mountains just above them, effectively cutting these areas off from the rest of Kalimdor. They aren't cut off from water sources, but general air circulation may make it such that those areas have never really gotten a lot of moisture, and just dried out as a result. Silithus, Ahn'Qiraj, Uldum, and Tanaris are all about the same kind of area, and are close enough on a reasonably stable continent that they share climate characteristics. Though it is nice to see how Uldum resembles Egypt right down to the geology; the river provides a delta and a source of water to what would otherwise be almost uninhabitable.
Winterspring can only be that cold if it is at higher altitude than any of the other areas. There are lots of mountains around it, which might be from a Himalayas-style uplift. Looking at how the continents must have connected before they all pulled apart, Winterspring lines up well with the edges of Borean Tundra and Dragonblight. I'm not sure why it's at such higher altitude- remnants of the collision event that have somehow kept that part of the continent higher up?
Most of northern Kalimdor makes sense. Moderate latitude, reasonable rainfall. You get a variety of temperate forests. Some are clearly much wetter than others, but still, a somewhat more stable continent with wide climate bands rather than 'everything's kind of a mess' as in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Also, Mt Hyjal is another volcanic hot spot. Oh yeah, and dragons and elementals and other strangeness. Nonetheless, volcanism in the middle of an otherwise stable continent. In looking at Kalimdor as a whole, it lines up rather nicely with Un'Goro's volcanism. Do I see a possible future rift zone there? Hyjal, the random volcano in Ashenvale, and Un'Goro. They are closely enough on one line that that definitely could turn into a rifting zone given a few more million years, especially with the knowledge that Azeroth is more tectonically active than Earth.
The whole dry band of the Barrens, Stonetalon, and Durotar is kind of strange. The bands of climate in general don't match up that well, because if it is happening on one continent, I'd expect to see similar patterns in another. This kind of climate bands looks to me like it's probably influenced by winds- there are certain bands of winds and ocean currents on Earth that do play a part in climates. Though why this has made a band of Kalimdor dry when the corresponding area in the Eastern Kingdoms is a slightly dry highland... Such is fantasy.
The Southern Barrens and Mulgore seem to be a rainshadow desert. The mountains between Dustwallow Marsh and Southern Barrens aren't quite tall enough to cause a serious desert, but enough to make that area drier than usual and make Mulgore a grassland rather than forest; there just isn't enough water to support a serious forest. That makes sense. Much of Kalimdor seems to be warmer than the Eastern Kingdoms- I think it's just closer to the equator of Azeroth.
Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles, and for that matter Teldrassil, are far enough away from the rest of Kalimdor that they aren't really being affected much by whatever really shapes the climate of the rest of the continent. They seem wetter though a bit cooler than everything else, probably influenced by being small islands that likely split off of the main continental plate and are doing their own thing. Teldrassil is very uplifted- perhaps this is a VERY OLD volcanic remnant? It's a lot higher than any one island really should be if it hasn't been a former volcano. That would also explain the random mountains here and there. Bloodmyst Isle is kind of dry and deserty for its location, but I'm going to wave my hands and say that there's magic. Such are draenei.
My general analysis: Azeroth is very tectonically active and has a lot of weird shit going on. And as a geologist, I want to go there and wander around and map. And of course, I'd get eaten by dragons/elementals/Scourge etc. in the process.
As a result, I want to do a better version of my "WTF WoW geology" entry. I'll do one on Game of Thrones and how Westeros does/n't work. But since I'm three areas away from getting my World Explorer title on my main, and have as a result seen enough of how the world is put together, I think I'll do the intelligent version of this. My apologies for ridiculousness.
This is the map I've been working from. To the best of my knowledge, it is correct as of Cataclysm. I'm not even touching Outland; it's another planet and beyond the scope of this brainwandering.
My basic assumptions: Azeroth is about Earth size and density, with a similar atmosphere. Likely similar distance from its sun. It is more tectonically active overall. I honestly don't know how having two moons instead of one are likely to affect things- off the top of my head, I think it probably does something to the tides. But I'm too lazy to deal with that; I can come up with far more about the tectonics. I'm also assuming that Azeroth may be a bit younger than Earth, because tectonism is usually more active on a younger planet that has had less time to cool down fully.
Working off of the idea that Azeroth is both more tectonically active and has more tectonic plates, it makes sense to have continents composed of small terranes being pushed together, perhaps having not finished this process. We know that all of the continents were linked together in a supercontinent at one point, and split apart. This makes sense looking at the margins of all of the continents, and noting that along the eastern edge of Kalimdor and the western edge of the Eastern Kingdoms, there isn't much going on. Passive continental margins. And therefore we can assume that somewhere in the middle of the ocean there is a spreading zone.
The Eastern Kingdoms is already made of two separate continents, which are starting to collide. Continent-continent collision usually produces mountains and sometimes volcanism, and that would explain all of those mountains at the margin between the two continents. In general, the idea of Eastern Kingdoms being made out of small terranes that accrete together works well. The northern part hasn't changed much over the years, but the southern part has been a lot more active.
I think I've solved my rant about "WTF areas in the middle of the Eastern Kingdoms." Blackrock Depths is a volcano, known from lore. The whole area around Dun Morogh shows signs of past volcanic activity. For that matter, most of the Badlands-Burning Steppes-Searing Gorge area looks at least somewhat volcanic-influenced and is very dry in comparison to some of the stuff directly north of it. Just based on that, this looks like a volcanic hot-spot? Perhaps one related to the collision of the northern and southern parts. Collision produces uplift, but things get pushed down as well. Assuming that Azeroth's tectonics react something like Earth's, crustal material pushed down into the mantle will melt and rise as a plume. This plume starts hitting the continent above, starting with Dun Morogh (older volcanism) and starts to move, causing more active volcanism in the Badlands/Burning Steppes area.
Also, assuming collision and uplift explains Arathi Highlands, Twilight Highlands, and Wetlands. Arathi and Twilight are being pushed up, and some of this is extending to Wetlands. I'm not sure how it gets so warm, but I think there has to be some rainshadow in effect there, where Wetlands (low lying low latitude) is getting all of the moisture that isn't getting to more eastern areas. Arathi and Twilight are both being seriously uplifted by continental collision, which will eventually close the sea between them and result in high mountains and plateaus.
Stranglethorn is far enough south that it could easily be in a generally wet climate area, and if it's at mid to low latitude, that would explain why it's a jungle area. Also, the large mountains on the eastern side of Stranglethorn would work as a rain barrier, making the Blasted Lands a rainshadow desert. Even if it weren't for the Dark Portal opening and dumping demons into the area, I'd think that the mountains would make the area very prone to being a desert. Also, this would indicate that the whole southwestern corner of the Eastern Kingdoms is temperate and gets adequate rainfall. Good conditions for deciduous forests like in Elywnn Forest. Westfall is a bit dry, but still reasonably fits in.
It still kind of bothers me that Eversong Woods appears to have a warmer climate than Tirisfal Glades, judging by vegetation. Even altering the flat world map to fit on a globe, and assuming that there are other landmasses on the other side of Azeroth that we are not aware of, all of Eversong Woods should be at fairly high latitude and therefore a good deal colder than it seems. Based on this, I have to assume that there are ocean currents similar to the Gulf Stream that bring enough warm water to the Eastern Kingdoms to keep Eversong Woods much warmer than it should be. Using this assumption, this same current probably also keeps Howling Fjord a bit more habitable than it should be.
The map I'm working off of gives me the impression that Northrend is smallish. It's the Greenland phenomemon- the most common flat maps seen of Earth exaggerate Greenland's size a good deal, and I think the same thing happened to the map of Northrend. It's kind of annoying that Northrend is being depicted as the same size as some of the other continents, it takes a long time to fly around, but by my fuzzy little geologist's logic, I assume it's about the size of the northern half of Eastern Kingdoms. I assume this is not a north polar continent, but instead just at very high latitude. I do think I read somewhere in the lore that Azeroth has a north polar ice cap, and IIRC that's not Icecrown.
In looking at Northrend, I'm also forced to assume that the northern polar ice cap has a continent under it, due to the way Northrend looks tectonically. We do not see or hear anything of this continent because it is too far north to sustain life and covered in ice. Kind of like Antarctica. As a side note, it's not mentioned whether there is a southern polar ice cap or continent. We don't see enough of anything that far south to really make it relevant, though.
Problem: Sholazar Basin. Sholazar seems far too temperate to be at such high altitude, and I'd expect that any ocean current that can keep it that warm would also cause warming in the areas around it. But Icecrown is glaciated, and the Borean Tundra is just that. Tundra. Zul'Drak is appropriately cold for the latitude, but Sholazar isn't. It sounds like official sources are suggesting something volcanic is warming the area, but I honestly don't know enough about volcanic side effects to outright say that it'll produce a jungle. Just to shut myself up, I'll say that Sholazar has a nice offshore current keeping it warm, and geothermal heat from below has kept it very temperate.
Icecrown and Storm Peaks are easy. I assume that Northrend is the edge of a continent, and is colliding with an oceanic plate just north of it. This would be a source of geothermal heat for Sholazar, and collision would also drive Icecrown and Storm Peaks up. This produces large mountainous glaciated plateaus; Icecrown made me think of the Himalayas gone horribly wrong when I first flew in there. Northrend looks like it's had a lot of tectonics overall; the huge amounts of mountains make me think of lots of small terranes accreted all together. Most of the mountains aren't that high (indicating older tectonics), until you hit the Icecrown area, which is a plateau.
Most of the rest of Northrend makes perfect sense under this model. High latitude and there is a northern polar continent colliding. A current running along the southeastern edge, likely the same one that will go near Eversong Woods, keeps Howling Fjord somewhat warmer than the rest of the continent.
Kalimdor was fun. I think it's positioned at slightly lower latitude than the Eastern Kingdoms, making the southern edge drier and the continent as a whole somewhat warmer. Also, I'm inclined to think that Kalimdor is more tectonically stable than the Eastern Kingdoms, and is likely all on one large plate like Australia.
Un'Goro Crater is clearly a hot spot of volcanism. There is a volcano in the middle of the area, and the hot springs around (and just general look of the rocks) indicate volcanism. The shape of the zone looks something like possibly caldera volcanism, kind of like what's under Yellowstone. With that in mind, that would explain all of the large mountains around Un'Goro, as they are old caldera walls built up through several explosions.
The whole southern several zones of Kalimdor are very desert. I know that isn't grammatically correct, but you get the point. There are lots of mountains just above them, effectively cutting these areas off from the rest of Kalimdor. They aren't cut off from water sources, but general air circulation may make it such that those areas have never really gotten a lot of moisture, and just dried out as a result. Silithus, Ahn'Qiraj, Uldum, and Tanaris are all about the same kind of area, and are close enough on a reasonably stable continent that they share climate characteristics. Though it is nice to see how Uldum resembles Egypt right down to the geology; the river provides a delta and a source of water to what would otherwise be almost uninhabitable.
Winterspring can only be that cold if it is at higher altitude than any of the other areas. There are lots of mountains around it, which might be from a Himalayas-style uplift. Looking at how the continents must have connected before they all pulled apart, Winterspring lines up well with the edges of Borean Tundra and Dragonblight. I'm not sure why it's at such higher altitude- remnants of the collision event that have somehow kept that part of the continent higher up?
Most of northern Kalimdor makes sense. Moderate latitude, reasonable rainfall. You get a variety of temperate forests. Some are clearly much wetter than others, but still, a somewhat more stable continent with wide climate bands rather than 'everything's kind of a mess' as in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Also, Mt Hyjal is another volcanic hot spot. Oh yeah, and dragons and elementals and other strangeness. Nonetheless, volcanism in the middle of an otherwise stable continent. In looking at Kalimdor as a whole, it lines up rather nicely with Un'Goro's volcanism. Do I see a possible future rift zone there? Hyjal, the random volcano in Ashenvale, and Un'Goro. They are closely enough on one line that that definitely could turn into a rifting zone given a few more million years, especially with the knowledge that Azeroth is more tectonically active than Earth.
The whole dry band of the Barrens, Stonetalon, and Durotar is kind of strange. The bands of climate in general don't match up that well, because if it is happening on one continent, I'd expect to see similar patterns in another. This kind of climate bands looks to me like it's probably influenced by winds- there are certain bands of winds and ocean currents on Earth that do play a part in climates. Though why this has made a band of Kalimdor dry when the corresponding area in the Eastern Kingdoms is a slightly dry highland... Such is fantasy.
The Southern Barrens and Mulgore seem to be a rainshadow desert. The mountains between Dustwallow Marsh and Southern Barrens aren't quite tall enough to cause a serious desert, but enough to make that area drier than usual and make Mulgore a grassland rather than forest; there just isn't enough water to support a serious forest. That makes sense. Much of Kalimdor seems to be warmer than the Eastern Kingdoms- I think it's just closer to the equator of Azeroth.
Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles, and for that matter Teldrassil, are far enough away from the rest of Kalimdor that they aren't really being affected much by whatever really shapes the climate of the rest of the continent. They seem wetter though a bit cooler than everything else, probably influenced by being small islands that likely split off of the main continental plate and are doing their own thing. Teldrassil is very uplifted- perhaps this is a VERY OLD volcanic remnant? It's a lot higher than any one island really should be if it hasn't been a former volcano. That would also explain the random mountains here and there. Bloodmyst Isle is kind of dry and deserty for its location, but I'm going to wave my hands and say that there's magic. Such are draenei.
My general analysis: Azeroth is very tectonically active and has a lot of weird shit going on. And as a geologist, I want to go there and wander around and map. And of course, I'd get eaten by dragons/elementals/Scourge etc. in the process.