Building the world of Galesia

[Gallien]

After so many years of thinking about my constructed world, I find myself at the very beginning. Almost no geography, very vague concept of history, etc. It was easy to make maps when I was a kid. The concept was clear - I always wanted to make variations of tolkienistic worlds and I made a lot of them. But now don't want to bake empty worlds like pies, I want to make THE world. So back in 2012 I took the best parts out of at least 3 worlds, mixed them together and formed the map of Aralor. And then I got stuck.

This year I finally realised that I do have some important differences in worldview with Tolkien. I don't like how Tolkien dealt with Feanor. Sadly, there's too much of "Repent, you sinners!" in Silmarillion for me. I always supported Feanor's rebellion and I want this story to be told correctly! I do want to have the "tolkienistic north-west" in my world, but it won't be the center of it. I'm thinking about a civilization based on the ancient Greeks. For now I call them Galesians - and the world is Galesia. It sounds both like Galley and Galleon and Gallia - I like it! These guys will be tied to themes of Feanor, Prometheus and Daedalus - surpassing the gods, learning and technology, etc. There probably will be exagerrations of technology on the brink of steampunk or even some magic on the brink of the Prometheus mythology.

Map-wise, this means I need a proper MEDITERRANEAN! And I've never made analogues of it. What's worse, the Mediterranean is probably one of the regions with the most complex tectonics. (Look at all those small plates crushed between Africa and Europe!) And I'd like to proceed with at least slightly plausible tectonics model.

So, I've installed G.Plates - and now I can use it as a newb - as a tool for drawing on a globe. I made a rough sketch.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. RIFT OR COLLISION

It seems that when continents break apart, they tend to do it along very accurate lines. Look at the red sea. Look at all the borders of Africa! Look at India and S.America (and N.America)! So no continental rift would probably create anything like the mediterranean. What I need is a collision - and what's the worst, a collision between 2 major continents with several minor plates caught in between. Maybe some smaller rifts can also be present, though.

Just for the sake of exotic feel, I'd like my Mediterranean to run from the north to the south. Since there is not much space between the temperate zone and the jungle, let the sea curve a little bit to the south-east. This region is shown on the globe with a blue L-like figure with a broken yellow line inside (roughly from 50*N to 20*N).

NorthernHemisphere.png

2. I do not want to start completely from scratch, so I want to connect my Aralor map to this mediterranean region. So let's imagine that the northernmost point of the mediterranean is in the southeastern corner of my old Aralor map.

This means that my mediterranean region will have a connection to a large sea to the west.

3. I would also like an old mountain range to the east of the mediterranean, going through the steppes and deserts straight to the far east. These mountains can be old, geologically inactive (~Ural).

4. Now to cover the North. I decided I should stick to the traditions of both Tolkien and Martin and make the landmass extend into the far north. So I introduced the Arctica continent. This gives me 2 mountain ranges with something like a Baltic sea in between. The southern mountain range is inherited from the old Aralor map, while the northern one... ehm... it is needed to make the traditional feel of the "mountaineous north" I don't want Siberia over there, I want Scandinavia, Iceland and stuff like that.

Frankly, I don't see how I could interpret these 2 long parallel mountain ranges in the north. Another tectonic plate, caught between Arctica and Tolkienland? And what about the sea right in the middle of the plate? Baltic Sea is an analogue, but the Baltic has its own history. Could a Baltic sea appear up there?

So, here is what I have:
MountainandPlate.jpg
(This is definetly not how I want my mediterranean to look like, it's only a sketch.)
I've drawn the old inactive eastern mountains with a dashed line.
The blue lines are the major plates boundaries.
Finally, I put a dashed line along the eastern edge of the steppes along the coast of the northeastern sea (~Okhotsk). I'm not sure if the plates will go in the right direction to create those mountains, but chances are high (it is the edge of the continent, after all). It would probably be nice if some mountains did exist there...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next step is to answer all the questions that I've listed here. I need to decide where the main plates are, what their direction is, which plate is subducted etc. And that will require making a global map, not a regional one. Right now I have a Pangea - and I'm not really interested in other continents, but I might need to put at least one continent somewhere in order to change the global climate... (I'll have to think about how the second continent is going to effect the ocean currents.) My goal is to make a dry continent with lots of deserts, steppes in the north and few forests - I don't want much jungle or taiga.

P.S. I think I should stick to using Gimp + GProjector instead of trying to understand GPlates. I probably won't be able to use it properly anyway...

[Gallien]

SOME TECTONICS

1. Europe was (or IS) formed when a lot of small tectonic plates got caught between 3 giant plates - Baltica (Scandinavia + Russia) in the northeast, Laurentia (N.America) in the west and Gondwana (or Africa) to the south. Europe got attached to Baltica quite early, but Laurentia and Gondwana split off and smashed back into it several times. It's like Baltica was a giant anvil, while America and Africa were giant hammers.

2. The origin of these small plates is also very interesting. Most of them split off Gondwana and Laurentia, so this is why instead of 1 mountain belt we have a series of them.

So, Pangea starts to split apart.
a) the coast of Gondwana splits off - Cimmeria forms;
b) Cimmeria smashes into Laurasia - the first mountain range forms - the northern border of the Anatolian, Iranian and Tibetan plateau;
c) parts of Gondwana - India and Africa - smash into Eurasia and the second mountain range forms - the southern border of these plateaus.

This is only the last time stuff like that happened. It had happened at least one more time, before the formation of Pangaea.
a) the coast of Gondwana splits off - Armorica + Kazakhstania form;
b) they smash into the northern continents, where Kazakhstania becomes a part of Laurussia (Armorica becomes what is now France).

Europe stole the shorelines of Laurentia (N.America) too! That was Avalonia, which became what is now England and Netherlands. When America itself smashed into Europe later, the Caledonian orogeny happened - the Scottish and Scandinavian mountains appeared.

So stuff like this happens all the time. Before 2 continents collide, the coast of the first continent splits off and smashes into the second continent. The main part of the first continent arrives later and smashes into "its own" lands from behind. That's how several parallel mountain ranges (and highlands in between) form.

The only region of Europe I don't really understand is the southwestern part - from Hungary to Greece. And this is an important region for the formation of the Mediterranean...

----------------------------------------------------------------

Now back to my map.
First of all, it seems that all Mediterranean-type seas have all their terranes - small plates - on one side, while the other is a big and relatively simple-shaped plate - craton. It doesn't necessarily mean that all peninsulas should be on one side - but it seems that most of them should...

Ok, all right. Let my "Gondwana-Africa" be on the west, my "Eurasia" - on the east. There will be several north-south mountain ranges with valleys (and sometimes seas) in between. The eastern mountains will be older than the western ones.

The "African" western coast can be divided in 2 parts (like real Africa) - mountaineous (plate border) and non-mountaineous (with some ocean crust in front of it).

Also there probably should be some analogue of the Adriatic plate - some plate that splits off "Africa" and pierces deep into "Europe" creating high mountains (~Alps) in front of it and lower mountains (Italian and Dalmatian mountains) on both sides. Maybe, maybe there could be 2 "splinters" like that - the result shouldn't be a copy of the real Mediterranean, after all. But at least one "splinter" is a necessity, I think - the general layout can't be complex enough without it... Or can it?

Now the harder part. The small plates of "Europe" on the other side of the "Mediterranean"...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All right, finally I think I have got something. I think you've already guessed that I began writing down all the stages here because I had problems with my creative process. But when you publicly say "I'm going to write a map" you just have to do it one way or another! I'm glad there's a Cartographers Guild for these situations!

Here the alpha version. Large red lines - active mountains, dashed lines - old mountains. Still not perfect, I'll probably rotate the whole sea and distort it...

Mediterranean.png

P.S.
NewGlobe.jpg

[Gallien]

There is only one thing I am sure about - modelling tectonic plates is hard as hell when you don't START with a Pangea, when you try to go back in time, not forward in time.

Part I.
1. Make a rough world map - probably 1200x600 with 75ppi will be ok. This will be the map of major tectonic plates.
2. Decide the main events of the geological history: which plates collided, which plates broke apart etc.
3. Make final corrections to the map - place the main orogenic belts (not mountain ranges exactly, but rather regions with lots of mountain ranges), place the main island arcs etc. Define the movement of main plates - direction and spin.
4. Main ocean currents can probably be defined on this stage. The first rough draft of the climate zones can be done too.

Part II.
Only then I'll be able to zoom in the region of my interest.
1. Elaborate the tectonics of the "mediterranean" and "west-european" regions.
2. Polish the coastlines and the mountain ranges. (Wilbur)
3. Finally establish the climate zones accurately.

Right now I haven't even finished step I.2
---------------------------------------------------------------
I started with the northern continent - "Arctica". I am sure it must be going south - so I imagined where it could have been before. (On the other side of the map.) Then I thought - why not make Arctica part of an old continent? So I added a small continent to the southwest of Arctica (codename - Atlantis). Then I looked on the eastern side of the map. The far eastern part of the mainland could also be a part of that old continent. So I corrected its borders too... But then I found out that I did it a bit wrong. While both the new continent and the "far east" were once connected to Arctica, they never bordered each other. And the form of the old continent was quite strange - so I added another island (codename - Zeelandia). I don't want any landmass in that area, so Zeelandia will be an underwater continent. This is the result:

(Red boundaries - convergent, green - divergent. Azimuthal equidistant projection.)
2Hemispheres.png

1) North pole.
Arctica ended up almost surrounded by divergent boundaries... Only after 2 plate splits! I hope this layout is not impossible...

2) I had to suppose that all the boundaries of that proto-continent were active - i.e. that protocontinent had no continental shelves. This actually makes it harder for the continent to split! I guess I'll have to add a "superplume" into the geological history of this world.

3) I am terrible at inventing the mid-ocean ridges! It is a nightmare! I think I won't do the underwater map - I'm content with only the basic idea of where the ridges are.

4) The southern hemisphere is more or less empty (the Pacific ocean of my world). But the main problem is the terrible coastline of the southern continent. I think I need to add a purely oceanic plate into the "pacific" - and then make the southern border the analogue of the Andes... But on the other hand there are a lot of "Andes" already - on the little continents I made today - Atlantis, the FarEast and probably even Zeelandia! (By the way, it will be problematic to sink Zeelandia completely if it has a high mountain range on its southern border...) So maybe the southern continent should have a continental shelf after all... Or maybe I'll just split the coast into 2 sections - with the shelf and with the Andes.

5) Finally, the southern continent looks like a long sausage. Continents don't usually look like that... I'll try to fix it somehow...

[ev_maps]

This is definitely a promising start, can't wait to see how the world develops!

[Jean-Abdel]

Please add the names of the landmasses on your map, it's hard to understand which landmass are you talking about.

[Gallien]

Please add the names of the landmasses on your map, it's hard to understand which landmass are you talking about.

Yeah, you are right, of course. Here are the codenames. Zeelandia is split in 2, so it is marked with Z.
Names.png

Actually, I got very tired of tectonics and all these initial globe planning stages. So I decided to take a break and elaborate the northwestern part of my Mediterranean. And I don't care if it won't fit the plate boundaries and all that stuff!

Coastline.png

[Gallien]

1) I think I overcomplicated things with 4 pieces of a continent - I decided to scrap "Atlantis" and "Zeelandia".
2) Only 2 parts of an old continent are left - the Arctica and the Far East. I changed their relative position a little bit, because when continents rift, there is usually some spinning motion.
3) I also think I've fixed the "sausage continent" - the one to the south of the mediterranean, the vague analogue of Africa. At least it is a little bit better now...
WIPtectonics.png
The new problem is the movement of the central "steppe" plate. It turned out to be surrounded by convergent borders almost on all sides - Arctica and the Far East are hitting it from the north-east, while "Africa" - from the southwest. So, I guess, I have to make it move ALONG those lines - either northwest or southeast... Otherwise it would be a paradox: a continent was moving forward when it was hit... from behind.
NewTectonics.jpg

[Jean-Abdel]

Your mediterranean looks great with all those islands, really looks like Greece. For Arctica being surrounded by divergent boundaries, it's Also the case for Africa. For the proto continent surrounded by active margins it's not an issue, America continue to rift away from Eurasdia and Africa while there are big active margins on the other side of the continent. Mantle plumes are often the cause of rifting. For Zeelandia, the actual Zealandia is also completely submerged while there is a big moutain range in the middle of it, so you will have islands but not necessarily something huge. Having many Andes-like mountains just depends on what you want for your world, if you need anything for your story and worldbuilding. For the southern continent having a weird shape, it's not an issue too, accretion of Terranes can make anything you want.