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| Atlantis: The Next Union; The weird things of a distant Earth | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 24 2016, 06:47 AM (3,919 Views) | |
| El Dorito | Feb 24 2016, 06:47 AM Post #1 |
chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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For the last 400 million years or so the land has been the domain of the tetrapods, those four legged beasts that range from frogs to dinosaurs, snakes to humans, birds to lizards; you name it, and there's a pretty high chance that it's a tetrapod. But suppose that in the future tetrapods suffered a major event, one that knocks out most of their diversity, something so apocalyptic that even these true survivors are unable to recover completely. Some 104 million years in the future, an enormous outpouring of lava, a flood basalt event, occures in South America, on the eastern edge of what is today the Amazon Basin. This event lasted only about 6 million years, but over that time it created the most extensive large igneous province on earth, even larger than the Siberian traps eruptions 350 million years earlier. This caused the great die off of all life forms, including insects and a bunch of really hardy animals. When it ended there were perhaps only 100 species of tetrapods in existence at all, most of them reptiles and amphibians that were better able to deal with the general lack of food. Fast forward 100 million years or so, and the world looks almost unrecognisable. The continents have all merged to some extent, and the Pacific Ocean is almost completely gone. Life is rich and varied again, but unlike in previous mass extinctions, the tetrapods did not fully recover, and now share the earth with a huge variety of other things. Large marine tetrapods akin to whales are a thing of the past, the only tetrapods that go in water now are things that are akin to otters and small crocodiles, and none are more than 5 metres long. In place of marine tetrapods, other things have taken over. Sharks and bony fish both survived, and have taken up part of the role, but in addition there are a bunch of more exotic organisms. Cephalopods also rose to the challenge, and became the Onychoctopodidae and Carcharoteuthidans, which are probably as close to the mythological kraken as is physically possible. Some crabs also became large benthic predators. But these things all exist today, or are similar to things today. They aren't exactly 'neo-vertebrates' either. But these predators aren't the only denizens of the Global Ocean, and some of their contemporaries are unexpected from a modern point of view. One such thing is the Gamaren. From a distance it looks very similar to a shark, but get closer and it turns out to be another thing entirely. In fact the Gamaren, and any of its 150 relatives, are not actually vertebrates at all, they are echinoderms, sea cucumbers to be exact. Like familiar sea cucumbers, gamarens have a relatively simple body, basically a living tube. They also lack a proper internal skeleton, with most of their muscles being anchored to their tough skin. But that's where the similarities end. Unlike any other echinoderms, gamaren have both a complex brain and eyes, and in fact they actually have more eyes than true vertebrates do, with up to 3 on each side of their head, although their visual receptors actually extend along their flank, meaning they can detect light from almost anywhere on their body, though only their real eyes can detect images and motion. In order to be effective hunters, gamaren have evolved a fluked caudal fin, but in contrast to every other marine creature, they actually have paired caudal fins. This might be expected to be a hinderance, but it actually appears to increase the manoeuvrability. One other important difference to other echinoderms is the preface of 'jaws'. While different to the jaws if vertebrates, the jaws of gamaren function in a similar way. The structure is connected to the front of a block of cartilage surrounding the brain, and open up and down. While perhaps not exactly a true jaw, as it's main function is to make the mouth and head more rigid to increase streamlining, the shape is very similar. Within the jaw structure are very sharp toothlike projections made of silica, essentially glass teeth. Despite having the power to dismember prey, more often the prey is simply swallowed whole.
MAP OF THE WORLD:
Edited by El Dorito, Mar 25 2016, 08:24 AM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Mar 13 2016, 07:28 PM Post #46 |
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I tried to show the direction of subduction with arrows, but they looked big and obnoxious so I got rid of them. But basically which ever side has land on it is the overriding plate. The island arc in the top left is different, because the subducting plate is attached to the continent. I probably wont get to 7 and 8 for a while anyway, so there isn't any rush to think of names at the moment. An article I read a while ago says mountains much taller than Mt Everest are actually pretty much impossible in Earths gravity, 10 km is probably the absolute maximum. Thats still tall but its not the 15+ km some people have hypothesised. |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Mar 17 2016, 07:03 AM Post #47 |
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The Open Ocean (If anyone knows how to make the picture smaller please let me know). (Image fromhttps://phytoplanktonic.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shetlands-1.jpg)  Of all places, perhaps none is more empty, and terrifying, than the open ocean. Some places in the central pacific today are more than 4000 km from any land whatsoever, and in many cases these islands aren't exactly 'dry land' either. But in 200 million years time, as the final stages in the formation of Atlantis are underway, that 4000 km distance is nothing. In the general area of the south pole lies the place on the earth furthest from any significant landmass, a whopping 10,000 km from the nearest point of continent, and still several thousand km from the nearest land in general. One would expect such a place, or anywhere else far from land, to be essentially lifeless. However, while it doesn't compare to a rainforest or reef, there is a surprising amount of life for be found here. Shoals of small animals swim through the water, feeding on plankton, and sometimes on each other. Like today's similar creatures, the majority of these small shoaling things are fish, however there are also squid of many kinds, and also a few species of pelagic crustaceans, similar to krill but bigger. Feeding on these resources are intermediate level predators, things like the oceanic Atlantornis pererro, one of the few birds to inhabit the oceanic realm. Some species of plesioseals*, like the formidable and wide ranging walrusaur, also spend considerable time at sea, and can be found here too. But in contrast to the oceans of the Holocene, this is not the kings domain of the tetrapods, their time as kings of the sea has been and gone. One successful group of vertebrates would be familiar to us. Sharks are common here, with several large species sharing the habitat. Since their first appearance in the early Devonian, or possibly even the Silurian, sharks have been remarkably consistent in their shape. Of course, it would be pretty hard to get confused between an early shark like Stethacanthus, and a derived modern shark of today, but overall the basic shape is very close. Sharks in fact might be the only group of vertebrates in this project that existed before the breakup of Pangaea in their (mostly) modern form. Despite making it through the two worst mass extinctions in history, they prospered, and with the lack of marine tetrapods, they finally took back the oceans they had been second hand players in since the Permian. Now there are getting on at 900 species of sharks, almost double the amount that existed at any general time in the age of marine tetrapods. Not all of them are big, in fact most are quite small at less than 2 meters long, but at the same time the largest animals alive are sharks. In particular, there are roughly 5 open ocean specialists that will be covered here. - Navy Blue shark - Vellox velox, a somewhat iridescent skinned shark that is an extremely rapid swimmer, even faster than the mako shark of today over short distances. Not related to the modern Blue Shark, which is similar in habits and description. - Fish-trap shark - Magnathus nodens, a large species about 7 meters long that follows large schools of fish and swallows large amounts of them whole. Looks similar to the modern basking shark but generally much smaller in overall size. -Pelagic Sword-ray - Pelagladiotrygon antipolaris, OK so its not really a shark, but its a cartilaginous fish nonetheless. Similar in appearance to a modern manta ray, but rather than filter feeding it eats pelagic fish like the other things here. They will also sometimes eat jellyfish, but only those that lack significant stinging tentacles. In this species the tail blade is reduced or absent, in benthic species the barb can be as long as a real sword, and a few species have the ability to electrocute attackers with it as the venom is electrically conductive, more on this later. as inferred by the presence of a tail barb, sword-rays evolved from stingrays, although there are a lot of differences between the two by now. there are two species of pelagic sword-ray, both within the cosmopolitan genus Pelagladiotrygon. -Death From Below- Mortinfernius cetos, the killer whale of its time, and one of the largest sharks alive, at 11 meters long. Looks quite different from sharks of similar habits today, one example is that it is less tapered and more cylindrical in shape, and has a mouth that is more toward the front of the face, although still behind the nose. -Glowshark - Luminius sp. one of many deep water creatures that migrates to the surface at night. Has bioluminescent organs on its underside similar to modern lantern sharks. --STILL SORTING OUT DETAILS, THIS MIGHT NOT BE DONE FOR A FEW DAYS-- If anyone can think of a better name for anything, I'l accept it. I'm not particularly good at coming up with names of made up things. Edited by El Dorito, Mar 18 2016, 03:44 AM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| Beetleboy | Mar 17 2016, 10:07 AM Post #48 |
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
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Nice work with the detail on the sharks. |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Mar 17 2016, 10:08 AM Post #49 |
An Awesome Reptile
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Well if you want to rename this how about the Orca Shark, or Wolf Shark (As Orcas are often referred to as Sea Wolves) |
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| El Dorito | Mar 17 2016, 06:41 PM Post #50 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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Wolf shark seems more appropriate for a smaller species, but there's plenty of ocean, and plenty of sharks so it could fit in somewhere. The page isn't actually finished at all, in fact it probably isn't even half done yet. |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| flashman63 | Mar 17 2016, 09:29 PM Post #51 |
The Herr From Terre
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Really enjoying this, el dorito. I think you have some really great ideas, regardless of what anyone else says. I REALLY love your pseudo-vertebrates, thou then again I always love pseudo vertebrates. Will we be seeing anymore outside of the gamaren? Also, where did you get the name? |
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Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed! It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors! A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs! An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door! Travel back to A Million Years BC ----------------------------------------------------- Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away ----------------------------------------------------- Some dickhead's deviantART | |
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| El Dorito | Mar 18 2016, 12:33 AM Post #52 |
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Well the gamaren are the only 'true' pseudo vertebrates, but in addition to them there are also large cephalopods, some of which kind of look a bit like the baleen squids of Spec, and there are also big crabs that hide in the sand of shallow sea areas, kind of like stingrays do today, except they are crabs and have gigantic claws for catching even quite large prey. The crabs will be explained at a later date, as they aren't the sort of thing that you would find in the open ocean really... The name comes from this thing, probably... My original idea was for the gamaren to be aliens, and because the names of the thing in the picture and what I created are so similar, the picture probably played a part in name choosing. Edited by El Dorito, Mar 18 2016, 12:33 AM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| Dapper Man | Mar 19 2016, 03:43 PM Post #53 |
* I am fed up with dis wuurld *
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Like the sharks 
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Speculative Evolution: Manitou; The Needle in the Haystack. | |
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| El Dorito | Mar 22 2016, 05:05 AM Post #54 |
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The Open Ocean - part 2 Here is a picture of the sharks I mentioned previously: http://el-d0rito.deviantart.com/art/Atlantean-Sharks-of-the-open-ocean-200-MyF-598158054 In the last post I talked about sharks, which are evidently doing somewhat better than they are today. But obviously sharks aren't going to be the only things of significant size in the oceans. In fact by number sharks only make up less than 1% of the biomass of the oceans, even though there are twice as many species at any one time as there were previously. One other group, also a relatively minor though important part of the ecosystem, are the gamaren, those 'sea shark-cucumbers' (sharkucumbers?) that evolved in the aftermath of the Extercene-Atlantozoic mass extinction.
At first, the 'proto-gamaren' weren't really anything like the fast swimming carnivores hinted in the introduction. In fact one of the only differences from normal sea cucumbers at all was the evolution of an internal rod made of a cartilage-like substance. Unlike the vertebral cord of a true vertebrate, there is no nerve within this cord. Why exactly this feature evolved in the first place is somewhat unclear, but within 20 million years of the extinction event, with the world having largely recovered, swimming forms had evolved. At first they were filter feeders like their ancestors, a habit still employed by some gamaren today, but it wasn't long before specialised predators evolved ways of dealing with larger prey. Do do this effectively, While no species evolved proper jaws, a number of species evolved cartilaginous supports around their mouths, which hinge in an up/down manner. To effectively kill prey, these species evolved teeth. But unlike the teeth and bones of tetrapods (and most things actually), the mineral portion of which is made of hydroxyapatite [Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2], the teeth of gamaren (they don't have bones) are made of silica(SiO2), which is more fragile, but forms a sharper cutting edge. This is also incorporated into the skin, which means it is rough and overall similar to shark skin, and as an added bonus is resistant to acidic conditions (to an extent). At this point the description describes a weird shark with glass teeth, but gamaren are actually pretty different to sharks. While they do swim with a horizontal motion, most of the actual thrust comes from pushing with their paired caudal fin. Other fins, unlike the fixed number of 4 (or less) lateral fins, the lack of a skeleton means that what look like fins are actually just fleshy lobes, and have no real skeletal support. Thus the number of fin pairs possessed by different species of gamaren can vary from none to over 10. Gamaren are varied in size, ranging from less than 50 cm to over 7 meters long, possibly the biggest echinoderms of all time. There are some 200 species of gamaren, roughly half of which are coastal, and most of the remainder are deep sea specialists. Only 20 species at all willingly go into the open ocean. They include: -Grey Sharkucumber, Deinothuria baleenia, a medium sized species, about 3 meters long, that largely lacks teeth and filter feeds small planktonic prey and baitfish from the water. -Glass-tooth sharkucumber, Deinothuria vitreodontis , similar to its close relative above, bur rather than primarily eating small planktonic prey, this species goes after larger fish, competing with a number of shark species, though not directly enough to cause conflict. -Sea-worm of death, Oceanatator obsididens, probably the scariest sea cucumber that has ever existed, this monster is the largest species of gamaren, with an adult size frequently exceeding 10 meters. Rather than being shark-like in shape, the sea worm of death is elongated, and is propelled by horizontal movements of its whole body. With teeth like razors (quite literally), this predator is able to deal with most prey. However, its relatively small mouth means it isn't really a hunter of big prey. Edited by El Dorito, Mar 27 2016, 05:56 AM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Mar 25 2016, 02:59 AM Post #55 |
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Because its not immediately obvious, here is a map of Atlantis showing the layout of today's continents within it, The map is also on the main description.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Apr 1 2016, 06:52 AM Post #56 |
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The Proximus Ocean The Proximus ocean is the other main ocean of the earth 200 million years in the future. Formed by the final convergence of Antarctica, South America and southern Africa northwards into what is today the western Pacific, the closure of the ocean will conclude the long march of the continents around the world after they first split in the early Jurassic. Lying on the equator, the ocean is teaming with life. Some of this is barely changed from the familiar Holocene creatures we all know, but after 200 million years of evolution the natural order has changed up quite considerably, resulting in some peculiar and unexpected creatures. Unlike the Global Ocean (properly called the Panatlantic ocean), which grew by continued expansion of the modern Atlantic ocean, the Proximus ocean formed as a result of the destruction of several different seas. From 28 to 89 MyF, the continent of East Africa split off along what is today the African Rift valley and moved east, destroying the Indian ocean on its way. From 90 to 135 MyF East Africa was pushed into the amalgamated continental block that was formerly Australia and South East Asia, and while this was happening the whole collision zone was itself moving northward into the north Pacific area. Eventually, with the northward movement of Antarctica bringing it into collision with the southern part of mainland Africa, both of them started to also move east, following East Africa and consuming the African Rift ocean. Simultaneously, South America continued its westward movement consuming the south Pacific ocean in the way. By this time 200 million years in the future, the southern Pacific and African Rift oceans had essentially merged, with no clear distinction as to where one ends and the other begins, it is this merged ocean that is known as the Proximus ocean proper. With an established subduction zone along its northern/eastern boundary the ocean will continue to close until the two coasts unite to finally complete the formation of Atlantis in another 50 million years time. With the northern and eastern coasts being bordered by tall volcanic mountain ranges, the inside edge of the mountains are lush forests with diverse life. The western coast is a flat continental area which is drier, but not desert. The southern edge of the ocean is marked by a chain of volcanic islands extending from Antarctica. Most of the western part of the ocean is quite shallow, less than 500 metres, meaning that life is diverse and often unique. Most of the large predators that inhabit the panatlantic ocean exist here too, but they share the ocean with some much more unusual lifeforms (well by our standards). -- I am hoping to make this more active from now on-- |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Apr 9 2016, 09:28 AM Post #57 |
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The Proximus Ocean - Biology Being a large and relatively confined ocean right on the equator, the Proximus ocean is teaming with life. Much of it is very similar to, or the same as what is found in the surrounding Panatlantic ocean, things like sharks, gamaren, seabirds, fish and rays are all regular inhabitants. But because it is surrounded by continent on all sides except the south, the warm waters are relatively much more nutrient rich and productive. As a result, there are a number of endemic species only found here. One such species is the Sharkmander,Carnogyrinus carcharinus, a species of marine amphibian. In the 200 million years or so since the Holocene, most amphibians haven't changed all that much, you can still see Atlantean frogs and toads hopping around wet areas, and some not so wet areas too. The Caudate amphibians, particularly small and widespread species, manages to quite contemptly go about their buisness while new giants came and went. Around 20 million years ago, one group of salamanders evolved the rather widespread feature of external gills, and at the same time they also became quite considerable in size, several meters long in many cases. For much of their evolution there was enough freshwater habitat to contain them, but eventually one species made the move to salt water and abandoned the land. The sharkmander is externally very similar to its smaller freshwater cousins, and in fact they live out the first few weeks of their lives in freshwater, before slowly migrating to the sea as adults. When in the tadpole stage, up to sexual maturity at the age of 3, sharkmanders have external gills similar to those on axolotls today, but upon reaching sexual maturity the gills are re-absorbed, the legs begin to grow, and the main method of obtaining oxygen is through their lungs, though absorption through the still present but reduced gills. As adults they have very reduced but still useful limbs, and a powerful tail. To deal with the salt, the sharkmander evolved tougher skin, which feels smooth and 'slimy' much like the skin of a marine mammal. At up to 7 meters long, among the largest amphibians of all time, they are formidable and very aggressive hunters, and frequently jump out of the water in attempt to catch flying things above. They even launch attacks from the water at prey that are much larger than themselves. In an unfortunately frequent situation the 'prey' is actually a large land carnivore which promptly reverses the predator-prey role... Sharkmanders are most common along the coastlines near the mouths of large rivers, where the water is less salty. Further offshore, other monsters lurk, monsters that resemble the stuff of nightmares. The first, and relatively the most tame of these beasts are the Carcharoteuthoids, large to huge cephalopods descended from some sort of squid that have proved very successful predators in the equatorial waters, out-competing sharks across most of the ocean. The second group, also cephalopods, are the onychoctopodidae, a family of octopi that hide in caves on the sea floor, and are varied in size, some of them are the largest animals of their time in terms of overall size, and are apex oceanic predators. The third are large crabs that hide in the seafloor and crush their prey to death with their imense claws. Carcharoteuthoids first started co come into being after the Extercene/Atlantozoic mass extinction when higher oceanic predators were at a low. The first species looked very much like normal squids, except their beak is less hooked and more like a serrated bullet shell, for lack of a better description. Of course, the beak is not visible in general, being deeply covered by the tentacles. Unlike modern squids, the primary method of movement is by propulsion with their enlarged mantle fins, which are strengthened by cartilaginous rods making the fin rigid and a powerful propulsive organ. The siphon is angled backwards under the mantle, allowing short lived bursts of speed up to 70 kph, more than fast enough to catch up to most prey. Being able to swim at speed forward affords the squid the ability to attack prey head on with the beak and scalpel sharp serrated hooks on the main pair of tentacles. With an impressively large brain, prey doesn't stand a chance. Carcharoteuthoids are all generally large, ranging from 2 meters to 10 meters long ad 500 kg to 3 tons in weight. Onychoctopodids are also large apex predatory cephalopds, but that's where the similarity between them and the carcharoteuthoids ends. Unlike their torpedine cousins, onychoctopodids are pretty much like giant versions of their ancestors, and looks outwardly like familiar Holocene octopi. The only real difference, and an extremely obvious one at that, is their massive size. The largest species, Indominoctopus krakkenus, has an arm-span of 20 meters, dwarfing anything else like it, and making it the biggest animal of this time (some sharks are heavier, but overall are smaller). Despite this tremendous size, like other octopi they can squeeze through impressively small spaces, 40 cm wide, which is a tighter fit than what most things 10 times smaller can get through. With their massive strength and power, as well as their clawed limbs they can overcome anything they come across, which would probably include small ships should they exist in the Holocene. Like all cephalopods, the colour changing abilities render these giants practically invisible when they are still, enabling them to hide in plain sight until the right moment to strike. Because of their size, venom is of little use to them and the majority of species have lost the ability to produce it. Relative to the previous thing, the last monster of the proximus ocean is relatively a downplay, but is still pretty dangerous. The Crusher Crab is the largest arthropod alive, and is comparable in size to the giant Ordovician eurypterids. Flattened to hide in the sand, crusher crabs are superb ambush predators, hiding in deep and shallow water alike, and even wandering onto land for a few days at a time, able to store water in their gills to survive on land. Despite the power and strength a crab of this magnitude would have, crusher crabs are no match for giant octopi, but are ironically common predators of smaller cephalopods, among other things taken opportunistically. Crusher crabs actually begin life as vegetarians, but become totally carnivorous before reaching adulthood. Edited by El Dorito, Apr 11 2016, 07:20 AM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Apr 10 2016, 04:23 AM Post #58 |
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An Awesome Reptile
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Very interesting, I like the carcharoteuthoid squid and the Sharkmander. Are you still adding more creatures to the Proximus ocean or is this chapter coming to an end? |
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| El Dorito | Apr 10 2016, 04:26 AM Post #59 |
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The part about the actual ocean is ended, but some of the terrestrial habitats are next to it so its not forgotten. There will also be pictures coming soon. |
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| El Dorito | Apr 23 2016, 09:51 AM Post #60 |
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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Sorry for lack of updates. I lost my motivation with the project and got bored with the concept for a while. If you have anything to say in the comments please do otherwise it just looks like I'm talking to myself... This next chapter will be a 4 part series concerning the most conspicuous area on Atlantis, the great desert that dominates the supercontinents west half. The Great Western Desert Stretching from the northern coast to within 100 km of the southern coast is the largest single habitat on the surface of Atlantis, the great desert. Formed over what is today parts of Eurasia and Africa, the desert covers just over 1/3 of the entire supercontinent. One would foolishly expect such a place to be lifeless, but in fact a variety of life thrives here, and not all of it is restricted to burrows during the daytime heat. By virtue of its immense extent, the geology, biology and climate of the desert is incredibly varied. Much of the southern area is located over the geologically inactive Sahara craton, meaning that the area is very flat and sandy, much as it is today. To the west of the desert is the eroded remnants of the Mediterranean mountains, which have been heavily deformed by the rotation of Africa in a clockwise motion. Associated with this rifting is an area of fractured crust which creates a highly seismically active zone. The extension also weakens the crust leading to extensive volcanism, forming both tall mountains and conspicuous black outcrops of basalt among the yellowish white sand. Because of the aridity, the volcanic features are preserved, meaning that events that may be several hundred thousand to over a million years old are still recognisable. Further East of here is a mostly stony area, this is the remains of the Himalayan mountain belt, now barely reaching 2000 metres compared to the almost 9000 metres in the Holocene. The northern estent of the desert is very different to the baking southern sands. It's not so much extremely hot, or extremely sunny, but just incredibly dry. Much like the Gobi desert today, the cold dry air means it is almost impossible for plant life to get a hold of the soil, leading to frequent dust storms and the formation of another and of sandy desert. The northern cold desert eventually merges with the perpetually snowy and equally inhospitable north polar snowcap. Each of these areas will be explained in greater detail on their own pages. Edited by El Dorito, Apr 23 2016, 06:42 PM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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12:05 PM Jul 13