I need help with the tectonics

[The Grey Stallion]

Hello everyone. I made my map a year ago but I can't continue to finish this map because I failed to put tectonics. I want my map to be a realistic one. I can't just draw random mountains, they all must be according to the tectonics. I need your guidance and wisdom. So there are parts of my map that I wrote my story on. These parts must be untouched except for mountains. Other parts will be shaped according to your tectonics.

The highlighed area is the important area. The borders shouldn't be changed but the mountains should be.

Here you can see the only mountains that shouldn't be changed.

(Actually I am a modder and I am planning to make a big mod for Europa Universalis 4)

[waldronate]

What is the scale of the bottom map (that is, how many km across and high is it)? What projection is used for the two maps. Tectonics is a feature of 3D astronomical objects in a certain size range and composition that are held together by gravity and will generate features generally of a certain scale for a given age. The two questions I asked assume the common "just like Earth but laid out differently" school of thought; if your assumptions are different, your answers will be different.

[waldronate]

I'm not sure which projection it is without a graticule (grid), but the Earth image either has curved parallels or is twisted slightly because of how the continents are laid out. On the Earth image that you showed, you're missing everything northward of about 65 degrees north latitude and south of about 55 (35 in places) degrees south latitude. For the moment, we'll assume that the world is firmly in the "just like Earth but laid out differently" arena.

Except for the projection from the distortion, the mountains are probably at least semi-plausible. Given that your second map shows an area roughly the size of Europe, the mountains are explainable without too much hand-waving. The rivers, though, need some serious work: most of them seem to be running from the oceans to the mountains, which is highly implausible.

I am also a little confused by these two statements: "I want my map to be a realistic one. I can't just draw random mountains, they all must be according to the tectonics." I don't understand the constraints that lead you to "must be according to the tectonics."

[The Grey Stallion]

The rivers actually fed by the mountains, I think you get the colors wrong? Are not the mountains result of the collisions of tectonic plates? I need plates with directions and I hoped that I could find some help here.

I need something like this.

[Azélor]

I don't know if I'm missing something since you say :

The borders shouldn't be changed but the mountains should be.

but I don't see mountains in the first picture.

Now with my little understanding of tectonic plates:
I know that these mountains (second picture) are the result of 2 convergent plates.
The large island chain is also a convergent boundary, with a lot of volcanic activity.

And I don't know either what the projection is but I know that the poles aren't there.
They they have to be covered in ice, white is just a filler.
The dimensions of the map below would be good assuming you are working with an equirectangular projection but that is clearly not the case.

JioCwW8 copie.jpg

[waldronate]

I asked the questions that I did about projection, scale, age, and so on because those questions actually matter if you're after "as realistic as possible." If you're just after "reasonably believable", look at the attachments.
1.jpg JioCwW8b.jpg
On the close-up version, I offered some suggestions about rivers. I outlined your apparently single river system in blue. I showed how rivers should join in red with my expected direction of flow at a join. You should probably have several rivers in that space, but I can't say much more than that without a solid idea of what kind of mountains those are, how high, why there is yellow on one side and green on the other, and so on.

[waldronate]

Some rivers don't form deltas at all, some rivers form inland deltas far from any ocean, some things that look like deltas form even though there's no permanent river, and some rivers form submerged deltas. Those special cases all form from special conditions. Always bringing them up even though the vast majority of time they don't happen isn't helpful, in my opinion. I suppose that it's the same sort of fascination with peculiarity that leads people to idolize serial killers even though virtually all people kill much less than a single person in their lifetime.

[Falconius]

Some rivers don't form deltas at all, some rivers form inland deltas far from any ocean, some things that look like deltas form even though there's no permanent river, and some rivers form submerged deltas. Those special cases all form from special conditions. Always bringing them up even though the vast majority of time they don't happen isn't helpful, in my opinion. I suppose that it's the same sort of fascination with peculiarity that leads people to idolize serial killers even though virtually all people kill much less than a single person in their lifetime.

I'd say we ought to give you a River Police Badge for your rant but you already got one

[waldronate]

I should apologize for that rant. I've been a little over-irritated lately by the day job and by the kids (and, honestly, by the adults acting like kids at the day job) and I let it seep out into a case where I know better. That's not an apology, is it? Just an excuse, and a poor one at that.

Maybe if I write up something along the lines of the "getting your rivers in the right place", "climatology for the uneasy", and "befriending the lonely mountain" articles it would count toward my penance. Start with concepts like gravity, how squishy rocks get when they're warm, and how those things work together to make a big ball where the direction of down depends on where you are. Move on to how warmer things rise, colder things sink, and how changes in melting point result in things separating as they warm and cool (that's plate tectonics right there). A quick discussion on exponential atmosphere density would lead to talk on how axial tilt and sunlight causes differential heating, which combines with the hot/cold discussion (and some phase change info) to get weather. Then weather gets to the water cycle, which uses heat to move water from oceans to land, where it flows back to the ocean (if it's on the surface, it's called rivers and lakes). Possibly even a quick digression into why there's no major river on the Yucatan peninsula, despite its size and amount of rainfall. That sounds like a lot of work, though, and I would probably need to get into the whole subject of map projections to understand why it's important to know your projection if you're trying to make a physically-based world. Maybe I'd need to talk about why continents get larger and slower as the world gets older (just like certain people!!) and why tectonic plates don't really move so much as rotate. Yep, definitely a lot of work...

[Pixie]

Maybe if I write up something along the lines of the "getting your rivers in the right place", "climatology for the uneasy", and "befriending the lonely mountain" articles it would count toward my penance. Start with concepts like gravity, how squishy rocks get when they're warm, and how those things work together to make a big ball where the direction of down depends on where you are. Move on to how warmer things rise, colder things sink, and how changes in melting point result in things separating as they warm and cool (that's plate tectonics right there). A quick discussion on exponential atmosphere density would lead to talk on how axial tilt and sunlight causes differential heating, which combines with the hot/cold discussion (and some phase change info) to get weather. Then weather gets to the water cycle, which uses heat to move water from oceans to land, where it flows back to the ocean (if it's on the surface, it's called rivers and lakes). Possibly even a quick digression into why there's no major river on the Yucatan peninsula, despite its size and amount of rainfall. That sounds like a lot of work, though, and I would probably need to get into the whole subject of map projections to understand why it's important to know your projection if you're trying to make a physically-based world. Maybe I'd need to talk about why continents get larger and slower as the world gets older (just like certain people!!) and why tectonic plates don't really move so much as rotate. Yep, definitely a lot of work...

Clearly the syllabus for a science course...
You would then have to add part 2: a syllabus for economics and history - including some anthropology, for those early stages of population and culture dispersion...
Although, in fairness to The Guild, most of it is already on the tutorials in one way or another.

As for this actual thread...

Great Stallion, reading the recent threads by kacey and PaGaN will show you that getting a working model for tectonics is not as easy as asking for a ready made one in a forum.

Here's an alternative take for the area you worked on already (there's always more than one way)...
greystall_notes.png
Two plates, now moving together northwards. The northern boundary is oceanic crust subducting, making it something alongside the Tethys-Mediterranean closure.
The boundary between the two plates (now inactive) is something of an eroded version of Himalayas. The eastern portion of mountains is still rising, since there is ongoing subduction of oceanic crust - like in the Andes.

Waldronate suggested some initial thoughts, and I am going to suggest a different path for the area you already worked on, but there's a lot of the walk that you can't expect to be done for you. I did have a look at your larger map, but couldn't make anything of it, furthermost because it lacks an appropriate projection (or, else, is incomplete).

So, to sound positive, here's a suggested route for you:
Ignoring the out-of-character rant by waldronate , read his suggestions and what Azelor wrote about the missing poles. Address that. Then read about passive and active margins in plate tectonics (it's difficult to see coastlines in your map that resemble passive margins). Then make version 2.0 of your whole map. Then post it here...