Plate Boundries

[Bohunk]

Hey guys, I decided to try to map and actually populate a new world and I was thinking of going with this file. Whenever I try to draw some plate boundries on it, I get lost or confused. Can someone figure out some set of plate tectonics(sp?) that might occur using this map? Also, if possible, wind and ocean currents? I don't want you to do the work for me, however, I want a realistic world and I fear that I would not make it so.

[RobA]

Here is one suggestion.

plates.jpg

Consider it a "strawman" proposal that others can tear apart

-Rob A>

[Bohunk]

That was quick thanks Rob!

That is not what I expected though. Doesn't plates typically have to appear around mountains? When I was drawing them, my plate boundries were near all the mountains. Or can mountains be formed and then the plates move on after that?

[RobA]

You just have to fake it.

No fractal noise generated land model will look like a tectonic plate model, unfortunately, as they will always end up with mountain ranges in the center of land masses (more or less).

This means you either have to accept that all plates are old, or fused plates from previous plate collisions. Some others have done better assessments than this. To get a "real" model you may have to take the FT outlines and put in your own mountains where you think they should be.

-Rob A>

[Bohunk]

Understood Rob, thanks. I'll use your plates then.

[Nomadic]

You just have to fake it.

No fractal noise generated land model will look like a tectonic plate model, unfortunately, as they will always end up with mountain ranges in the center of land masses (more or less).

This means you either have to accept that all plates are old, or fused plates from previous plate collisions. Some others have done better assessments than this. To get a "real" model you may have to take the FT outlines and put in your own mountains where you think they should be.

-Rob A>

Might I direct your attention to the rockies

[bartmoss]

Bohuk, let me start by congratulating you on your first step on the long and tiring road to making better worlds. :-)

Read the Wikipedia article on Plate Tectonics. Do that now. It gives a fairly good basic understanding of how plate tectonics work, with some nice illustrations, too. I always, ALWAYS keep that handy when I work on my tectonics.

Now, I am not a geology specialist, but basically you'll actually have to come up with divergent, convergent and transform borders. Rob's proposal, and I understand it's intended as only a simplistic draft, just isn't really plate tectonics yet.

Rob is right that such fractal maps will never, ever look naturalistic (that's why I reluctantly decided not to use them). They'd work for asteroids, but not for actual worlds. Now, you can have very craggy coasts - look at scandinavia's fjords, or the coast of new england, but the process doesn't involve plate tectonics directly. Fjords are carved by glaciers, the New England coast is a "sunken" coast, that is, where eroded mountains /hills are now the coastline.

If I can give you a bit of advice, you will make your life a LOT easier by drawing the plates first and THEN coming up with continents that fit them. You probably won't quite know what you end up with, but since you are using a random map anyway I think that should be fine. I always draw continents first and then try to figure out what plate tectonics could have produced them, and, boy, that is quite difficult because oftentimes the location of continent A requires plates and plate boundaries that conflict with continent B...

Nomadic, the Rockies are the just the product of previous tectonic activity, not current. They are also not anything like a fractal noise map generator would produce. ALL mountains are the product of either volcanism, or plate collisions, while large hills can also be the product of glacial deposits. Any other type of unevenness in the earht's surface would have long since been eroded away.

[jfrazierjr]

<threadjack mode="slight" purpose="supersillious">

/me looks at developing world map
/me puts down mountains where he wants to
/me waives hands and says that's where mountains developed cause that's where I want them.

</threadjack>

[Midgardsormr]

Philistine. (-;

[jfrazierjr]

Philistine. (-;

If I wanted to be realistic, I would not be creating maps for my fantasy games that include magic now would I???