[size=8=]Europe[/size]



The Golden Age of Granite had done a real number on Europe, and then some. The two tectonic snags that blocked off the Mediterranean had also conspired with the magma to make all of the mountains so much higher than they are back home. The Alps, now the western coastline of Lake Colchis, stand no higher than 20,585.43 feet above sea level. The Carpathians, now a peninsula within the inner circle of Lake Colchis, have a maximum elevation of 28,581 feet above sea level. The Great Horn of the Apennines in Italy is even greater on Great Lakes Earth, with an elevation of 12,466 feet above sea level. Botev Peak is still the highest peak in the Balkan Mountains, but now it stands 25,573 feet above sea level. The quote-unquote “Black Forest” might be a double misnomer on Great Lakes Earth, with its highest point standing 16,068.6 feet above sea level. The Spanish coastal range of Cantabria has a maximum height of 28,505 feet above sea level. The other ranges follow suit:

  • Dinarides. Maximum elevation: 29,001 feet above sea level. (Unbelievably close to Everest’s current height back home!)
  • Skanderbeg Mountains. Maximum elevation: 3,799 feet above sea level.
  • Gennargentu, the highest peaks in the “island” of Sardinia. Maximum elevation: 19,741 feet above sea level.
  • The Harz. Maximum elevation: 12,283 feet above sea level.
  • MacGillycuddy’s Reeks. Maximum elevation: 11,176 feet above sea level.
  • Wicklow Mountains. Maximum elevation: 9,958.1 feet above sea level.
  • Mourne Mountains. Maximum elevation: 9,158 feet above sea level.
  • The Sperrins. Maximum elevation: 7,295 feet above sea level.
  • Jura Mountains. Maximum elevation: 18,494 feet above sea level.
  • Massif Central. Maximum elevation: 20,303 feet above sea level.
  • Mount Olympus. Maximum elevation: 12,487 feet above sea level.
  • Owl Mountains. Maximum elevation: 10,921 feet above sea level.
  • Ore Mountains. Maximum elevation: 13,388 feet above sea level.
  • Pennines. Maximum elevation: 9,613.5 feet above sea level.
  • Pindus. Maximum elevation: 28,387 feet above sea level.
  • The Pyrenees. Maximum elevation: 14,572 feet above sea level.
  • Rila. Maximum elevation: 12,521 feet above sea level.
  • Rhodope Mountains. Maximum elevation: 23,582 feet above sea level.
  • Sharr Mountains. Maximum elevation: 11,764 feet above sea level.
  • The Scandinavian Mountains. Maximum elevation: 25,573.5 feet above sea level.
  • The Scottish Highlands. Maximum elevation: 14,479 feet above sea level.
  • Sierra Morena. Maximum elevation: 14,337 feet above sea level.
  • The Baetic System. Maximum elevation: 14,891.6 feet above sea level.
  • The Central System. Maximum elevation: 27,900 feet above sea level.
  • The Iberian System. Maximum elevation: 24,900 feet above sea level.
  • Sredna Gora. Maximum elevation: 17,262 feet above sea level.
  • Strandzha. Maximum elevation: 11,100.6 feet above sea level.
  • The Holy Cross Mountains. Maximum elevation: 6,606 feet above sea level.
  • Sudetes. Maximum elevation: 17,253 feet above sea level.
  • Swabian Jura. Maximum elevation: 10,925 feet above sea level.
  • Serra de Tramuntana, the highest range in the Balearic “Islands”. Maximum elevation: 15,455.1 feet above sea level.
  • Vogelsberg. Maximum elevation: 8,320.6 feet above sea level.
  • Vosges. Maximum elevation: 15,328 feet above sea level.
  • Black Mountains, Wales. Maximum elevation: 8,731.1 feet above sea level.
  • Brecon Beacons. Maximum elevation: 9,538 feet above sea level.
  • Snowdonia. Maximum elevation: 11,681 feet above sea level.
  • Baba Mountain, North Macedonia. Maximum elevation: 27,994 feet above sea level.
  • Jakupica Range. Maximum elevation: 27,318.5 feet above sea level.
  • Voras Mountains. Maximum elevation: 27,169 feet above sea level.
  • Kožuf Mountain. Maximum elevation: 23,370 feet above sea level.


Even the “islands” of the Mediterranean are higher than they are back home:

  • Sicily, 14,251 feet above sea level.
  • Sardinia, 19,740.6 feet above sea level.
  • Corsica, 29,127.5 feet above sea level.
  • Crete, 26,411.6 feet above sea level.
  • Euboea, 18,765 feet above sea level.
  • Lesbos, 10,420 feet above sea level.
  • Rhodes, 13,092 feet above sea level.
  • Chios, 13,959 feet above sea level.
  • Kelafonia, 17,522 feet above sea level.
  • Corfu, 9,749 feet above sea level.
  • Lemnos, 5,046 feet above sea level.
  • And so on and so forth…


Such greater heights mean that more land would get pushed upwards, which has led many within the scientific community to speculate that their uplifts had initially reduced the Mediterranean Sea, and that Africa’s northward push was merely the last straw, the final nail in the sea’s coffin. Today, on Great Lakes Earth, its lowest point, Calypso, is not 17,280 feet below sea level, but 49 feet above. This ultimately transformed the Mediterranean Sea into a large portion of what we’ve christened “The Forbidden Desert”, an arid expanse covering an area of 9.2 million square miles, almost three times the size of the Sahara back home!


The fact that the mountains of Europe are higher than they are back home is the only explanation we can think up in figuring out why modern-day Europe on Great Lakes Earth looks exactly like the Europe we used to have back in the Pleistocene. Where we’d expect to find the Irish Sea, we find instead Saint George Lake, covering an area of 6,858 square miles and a maximum depth of 275 feet.


Iceland never existed on Great Lakes Earth, but where the North American, Eurasian and African plates meet, you might find its appropriate replacement. The Azores, an island chain occupied by Portugal, may look identical to back home, but something doesn’t look right under closer inspection. A bathymetrical scan shows an Azores Plateau measuring 250,000 square miles in area, far larger than it is back home. Pico Island is still the highest in the chain, but instead of 7,713 feet above sea level, it stands only 77 feet. There is an additional island, a westward-bending boomerang shape of sheer, vertical cliff. Known as the Western Atlantis Wall, it stands 10,064 feet above sea level, though its submerged base totals it up to 25,304 feet. The eastern half of the wall is completely gone. This wall is formed when the island of Atlantis collapsed under a volcanic supereruption at the beginning of the 13th century BCEIHY (Before the Common Era in Human Years—more on that later.)


The Thule Isthmus still connects Greenland’s Gunnbjorn Mountain and Scoresby “Sound” to the Shetland “Islands”. Greenland, in turn, is far more mountainous than back home, with its highest point, Gunnbjørn Fjeld, standing in at 27,027 feet above sea level.