Conworld random thread

[Raphael]

A few months ago, in this thread, I asked:

Could life evolve on a planet where there are major earthquakes (well, name-of-planet-quakes) everywhere all the time? Could some form of intelligent life evolve under such circumstances? Could some form of intelligent life produce a technological society under such circumstances?

All I got back then was one person responding with "Yes to all." Does anyone perhaps have a slightly more detailed answer?

[keenir]

A few months ago, in this thread, I asked:

Could life evolve on a planet where there are major earthquakes (well, name-of-planet-quakes) everywhere all the time? Could some form of intelligent life evolve under such circumstances? Could some form of intelligent life produce a technological society under such circumstances?

All I got back then was one person responding with "Yes to all." Does anyone perhaps have a slightly more detailed answer?

well, what do you want details in? those are three very broad questions, so its hard to answer them in specifics.

[Ares Land]

A few months ago, in this thread, I asked:

Could life evolve on a planet where there are major earthquakes (well, name-of-planet-quakes) everywhere all the time? Could some form of intelligent life evolve under such circumstances? Could some form of intelligent life produce a technological society under such circumstances?

All I got back then was one person responding with "Yes to all." Does anyone perhaps have a slightly more detailed answer?

Oh, I was certain I'd written a somewhat detailed post in response and it turns out I never did.

Anyway,

Interestingly, it's the basic premise of the Broken Earth trilogy. (Which certainly doesn't mean you have to imitate these books! But they're very good.)

It's not necessarily bad news for life. -- I think more earthquake automatically translate into more volcanoes, so all in all more CO2, very fertile soils (volcanism releases essential minerals, e.g. phosphorus into the soils.)

It's all good news for life.

On the bad side, you'd get mass disasters and mass extinctions on a more frequent basis. But I don't think this necessarily precludes intelligent life. Or civilization. (It could have a stimulating effect: after a mass volcano, everyone concentrates in one area that stays comparatively fertile, which in turns leads to agriculture, that sort of thing.)

[Raphael]

Thank you, Ares Land, that's a nice start!

keenir: Well, I was wondering about how people, or sentient entities of some kind, could get anything done if the ground keeps shaking. Sure, some simple life forms like grass or mosses or fungi might do fine, but how would anyone built anything that lasts? How would you produce modern technology - that is, how would you built production facilities of any kind for technological devices? OK, that might be possible with really advanced technology, but how do you get that really advanced technology in the first place, if you can't even built any kind of research facilities? So much in human life is based on the assumption that the ground will usually not shake, or at least not much...

[bradrn]

keenir: Well, I was wondering about how people, or sentient entities of some kind, could get anything done if the ground keeps shaking. Sure, some simple life forms like grass or mosses or fungi might do fine, but how would anyone built anything that lasts? How would you produce modern technology - that is, how would you built production facilities of any kind for technological devices? OK, that might be possible with really advanced technology, but how do you get that really advanced technology in the first place, if you can't even built any kind of research facilities? So much in human life is based on the assumption that the ground will usually not shake, or at least not much...

Well, this will be very highly dependent on the frequency and intensity of your earthquakes.

[keenir]

keenir: Well, I was wondering about how people, or sentient entities of some kind, could get anything done if the ground keeps shaking. Sure, some simple life forms like grass or mosses or fungi might do fine, but how would anyone built anything that lasts? How would you produce modern technology - that is, how would you built production facilities of any kind for technological devices? OK, that might be possible with really advanced technology, but how do you get that really advanced technology in the first place, if you can't even built any kind of research facilities? So much in human life is based on the assumption that the ground will usually not shake, or at least not much...

ah, okay. the following presumes that the quakes stop at least briefly; if they're constant, I would guess its still applicable, but am not sure.

if i recall, even southern California - infamous for its frequent earthquakes of all severities - usually has one or three very minor quakes every day....with minimal fuss or damage. do you mean that sort of quaking - that it happens daily to some degree?

Indonesia and Japan - and even Italy and Anatolia - manage fine with quakes from their fault lines and volcanos. and Iceland, right on the mid-Atlantic rift...

If the quakes on your conworld are enough to damage buildings as we make them, then maybe...
a. buildings aren't built to last particularly long
b. buildings are deep-rooted structures for extra stability
c. the tops of buildings are lighter-weight than the bottoms...whether or not they're limited to being only one floor tall (perhaps the cross-section of a wall looks like a Nubian pyramid)
d. other...

[Raphael]

I was mainly thinking of something like the Tangshan Earthquake - I got the idea when I read a book about that one - everywhere, all the time. I don't think even Iceland has anything like that.

[Ares Land]

The consequences would be impressive. There's of course the energy constantly being released into the biosphere and besides I think earthquakes necessarily implies volcanism. The sun would be continuously blocked and the air saturated with particles.

I don't think that necessarily precludes life, but, ahem, not as we know it.

You'd have something like a continuous nuclear winter; then again, maybe the planet is closer to its sun? Or it cancels out with the greenhouse effect? I'm sure life and intelligently could be justified but it'd all look very alien.

[bradrn]

and besides I think earthquakes necessarily implies volcanism.

I don’t believe they do. Volcanism necessarily implies earthquakes, to some extent, but not the other way around. There aren’t any volcanoes in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, for instance. The Zagros Mountains don’t seem to have many either.

That being said, if your world has continuous Tangshan-level earthquakes anywhere, I don’t think that terrestrial plate tectonics applies anymore.

[Ares Land]

I don't know, wouldn't constant earthquakes imply lots of tiny plates? So lava'd be bound to seep up to the surface at some point.

[zompist]

Here's a really nice map of volcanos, earthquakes, and plate boundaries:

https://tile.loc.gov/image-services/iii ... efault.jpg

Basically: both can occur just about anywhere, but they overwhelmingly cluster at plate boundaries. However, volcanos occur much more at converging than diverging plate boundaries.

As for Raphael's question, I think "major earthquakes everywhere all the time" would preclude civilization... it's kind of hard to build even a house during an earthquake. So you have to relax at least one of the conditions: they're not always major, not always happening, or not happening everywhere,

[bradrn]

I don't know, wouldn't constant earthquakes imply lots of tiny plates? So lava'd be bound to seep up to the surface at some point.

Well, this would be different enough to Earth plate tectonics that, as I said, I’d be reluctant to draw any conclusions given my knowledge of the subject. (Besides, see my comments on volcanoes below.)

Here's a really nice map of volcanos, earthquakes, and plate boundaries:

https://tile.loc.gov/image-services/iii ... efault.jpg

Basically: both can occur just about anywhere, but they overwhelmingly cluster at plate boundaries. However, volcanos occur much more at converging than diverging plate boundaries.

I’d refine this a bit. Earthquakes can occur anywhere there’s an active fault, or a fault which can be reactivated — and there’s quite a lot of both around. (e.g. the Mansfield earthquake a couple of months ago involved the Governor fault, about 400 million years old.) By contrast, volcanoes need either a plate boundary or a hotspot to form.

It’s also worth noting that volcanoes differ tremendously depending on what sort of lava they’re made of. Diverging plate boundaries, and oceanic hotspots, produce less viscous mafic lava which tends to make shield volcanoes. Converging plate boundaries, and continental hotspots, produce more viscous lava which tends to make highly explosive stratovolcanoes.

(Unrelatedly: did you know my spellchecker has ‘cryovolcano’ but not ‘stratovolcano’?)

[Raphael]

zompist: Thank you, neat map!

(Unrelatedly: did you know my spellchecker has ‘cryovolcano’ but not ‘stratovolcano’?)

Same for mine. Mine doesn't have "unrelatedly", either.

[bradrn]

(Unrelatedly: did you know my spellchecker has ‘cryovolcano’ but not ‘stratovolcano’?)

Same for mine. Mine doesn't have "unrelatedly", either.

Neither does mine. We must be using the same one!

[Hallow XIII]

are there even any spellcheckers these days that aren't hunspell under the hood

[bradrn]

are there even any spellcheckers these days that aren't hunspell under the hood

I use aspell with Emacs, because when I looked for a spellchecker everyone said hunspell is rubbish. And my experiences with Firefox seem to confirm this, if it is really using hunspell.

[Moose-tache]

I had a stupid idea, and I want to know just how stupid it is: pastoralism, based on birds.

Something like a goose can convert grasslands too marginal for farming into usable food just like a sheep or cow. And while they don't produce milk, they do produce eggs, as well as leather and down.

Is there an obvious reason why this would never work? I'm sure there must be...

[Travis B.]

I had a stupid idea, and I want to know just how stupid it is: pastoralism, based on birds.

Something like a goose can convert grasslands too marginal for farming into usable food just like a sheep or cow. And while they don't produce milk, they do produce eggs, as well as leather and down.

Is there an obvious reason why this would never work? I'm sure there must be...

The only thing is the birds would have to be flightless (e.g. ostriches, emus) for this to work.

[Moose-tache]

I had a stupid idea, and I want to know just how stupid it is: pastoralism, based on birds.

Something like a goose can convert grasslands too marginal for farming into usable food just like a sheep or cow. And while they don't produce milk, they do produce eggs, as well as leather and down.

Is there an obvious reason why this would never work? I'm sure there must be...

The only thing is the birds would have to be flightless (e.g. ostriches, emus) for this to work.

You do know people farm flighted birds now, right?

Just like horses that could run away if they really wanted to, most domesticated birds stick around because they just instinctively hang around the nice safe humans. I've seen people farm geese and ducks without even so much as a chicken wire enclosure. Some geese have been known to bond with their owner almost like a dog. If you have a portable wooden nesting box for the birds that is warm and protected from predators, they'll come back each night. Plus, you could always clip their wings at birth if you're the sort of person who gets off on that.

[Travis B.]

I had a stupid idea, and I want to know just how stupid it is: pastoralism, based on birds.

Something like a goose can convert grasslands too marginal for farming into usable food just like a sheep or cow. And while they don't produce milk, they do produce eggs, as well as leather and down.

Is there an obvious reason why this would never work? I'm sure there must be...

The only thing is the birds would have to be flightless (e.g. ostriches, emus) for this to work.

You do know people farm flighted birds now, right?

Just like horses that could run away if they really wanted to, most domesticated birds stick around because they just instinctively hang around the nice safe humans. I've seen people farm geese and ducks without even so much as a chicken wire enclosure. Some geese have been known ot bond with their owner almost like a dog. If you have a portable wooden nesting box for the birds that is warm and protected from predators, they'll come back each night. Plus, you could always clip their wings at birth if you're the sort of person who gets off on that.

Obviously I don't farm birds I must say - lol.