Maps of the Miracle world
Salutem
Here is a height map for one of my continents that I've been working on the past couple of weeks (will do a world map version once the whole world's topography is complete)
Any advice on how to get the mountains and especially the lower hills to look more realistic would be much appreciated!
The continent is called Kilanna, lying on the planet of Mirabilis
As can be seen above there is a sharp divide between the low-lying valleys and small hills of Northern Kilanna with its many islands and large inland sea and the rough mountainous terrain of Southern Kilanna. Two very long andes-like volcanic mountain ranges stretch from west to east, bisected by the planet's second largest collisional mountain range. I've not modelled the climate yet (waiting to get all the topography done before I do) and so haven't done any rivers etc. yet.
Made in inkscape using the wonderful atlas mapping tutorial by Artifexian on youtube
Topographic Map of Anlak
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Here is a topographic map of the southwestern continent of Anlak, happier with this one than Kilanna, though it did take me a lot longer and I was using an inconsistent zoom level.
Runs from ~10 degrees south to ~70 degrees south, a bit smaller than our South America. Has a large volcanic mountain range/subduction zone running along its northwestern edge.
Anything in it that strikes you as being unnatural?
And here is a current world map of the topography. Next update should hopefully be a finished topographic map and I can start work on the atmosphere, oceans and climates
This looks really good to me (though I am no expert in this field!). These height maps always amaze me just due to the amount of time behind them!
Thanks! It takes a lot of podcast binging to get through the endless hours of drawing hahaha
This looks great so far! I'm at about this stage with my world and it's gratifying to finally get to the elevation map stage after doing all the geology.
It is of course a little hard to judge things without seeing the tectonic plate maps, but I like that I can see a number of clear tectonic features just by looking at the map. Since you asked though, a few (mostly nitpicky) comments from what I see here:
• Continental volcanic arcs like what you have on the west coasts of both continents here tend to rise quite precipitously from the coast, rather than a more gentle rise like what you have here. The Cascades on the west coast of the US are an exception, but that's because of the accretion of so many terranes in that area and the somewhat odd Laramide Orogeny- in which case I'd expect the mountains to be much broader rather than long and narrow like what you've got here. In general, it's quite rare to see a mountain range on earth that rises gently on both sides, with the highest point precisely in the middle. I'd move the highest bits closer to the coast, and maybe make it more of a plateau like the Andes. You could also add some accretionary wedges on the coast like the California or Chilean coastal ranges if you want a little more of an offset- these would presumably be separated from the main part of the mountains by foreland basins. FWIW I find the mountains on the west coast of Anlak to be much more plausible-looking than those on Kilanna.
• I find the long, thin mountain range on a peninsula in northeastern Kilanna quite... odd and there's not really anything like it on Earth. Assuming it's forming from an active subduction zone, you'd want the mountains to either be lower and perhaps separated into different islands (like Indonesia or Japan), or higher and will a filled-in sedimentary basin to the north rather than an inland sea as you have now. I have a similar critique of the long peninsula on the northwestern end of the central continent.
• Speaking of inland seas, the coastlines of the passive margins on both continents seem much more irregular than anywhere on earth- in areas like that you usually expect a large area of low-lying land and a relatively smooth coastline, perhaps broken up by estuaries as on the east coast of the US. Once again I find what you have on Anlak looks much more natural than Kilanna. Unless this is a world that's recently seen precipitous sea level rise? Some of the indents do remind me a little of flooded basins.
• I do love me a nice indented coastline, but assuming geography works on this world as it does on Earth, I'd actually expect some more areas where the coastline is a little more "boring". Africa, South America, and Australia are examples of continents that have fairly smooth coastlines with very little indentation (there are exceptions of course).
Again, overall this looks great! And feel to disregard any or all of my comments here, it looks like you've got a good start so far. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for your advice Tiluchi!
I agree with the mountains on Kilanna looking a bit weird, just couldn't put my finger on it, I'll go back and re-do them once I've got the rest of the topography done.
As much as I love designing intricate inland seas I think you're right, a few of them deserve the axe :,(
Here is a plate tectonics map, if anyone wants to look over it
Here is the finally completed world topographical map, now "just" got to work on the climates
Nice land shapes!
Ok so climates have been a bit of a nightmare. I found Azelor's guide a bit too difficult to follow and so I tried using pixie's which has worked for me in the past, however after following most of the steps (up to making the temperature maps) I used the wonderful script from this post to generate the climates. Unfortunately, around 60-70% of the map was black meaning no match with the climate criteria detailed in pixie's guide. Despairing at the amount of work it would take me to fix it manually I took the defeatist option of just using artifexian's climate guide videos, which while very useful as a baseline leave me feeling unsatisfied with the level of detail (I am currently doing an Earth Sciences degree after all)
So if any of you consider yourselves somewhat competent in this very complicated and controversial field, please do let me know if there's any odd climate placements. This planet has an Earthlike spin, year, tilt etc.
Many thanks
Liquid
EDIT: Colours have been ripped directly from the wikipedia page for the Koppen Climate Classification
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