World Map: Islands - Worldbuilder’s Log 22

[@doodles990]

Love seeing all the comments from people who apparently didn't get the memo that this is 1. *your* worldbuilding style and 2. a THREE TO FIVE YEAR PROJECT, which we are not even a full year into. Of course we're still on planet building, people. Of course we haven't gotten to the spec evo yet. Of course we're spending numerous episodes on GPlates and mapping. These are things that Edgar *likes* to do! Those complaining about the pace or content of this series not meeting expectations clearly didn't pay attention to what they were signing up for.

[@battyboio]

It's still boring tho It's taking too much time on things that won't matter in the grand scheme of things

[@amehak1922]

@@battyboio then don't watch, no one's forcing you to

[@battyboio]

@@amehak1922 I'm not watching them ._.

[@MultiGardenofeden]

@@battyboio So, you're commenting on a video you didn't watch?

[@battyboio]

@@MultiGardenofeden so?

[@theskepticalapple4203]

I like the island arc. Surely a bit of chaos is the point of this level of detail. If you wanted a “perfect” look from the start just draw a map you like.

[@crimsonhawk52]

1:39 would be cool if it formed a horn but left a really thin strait into the bay. Thin straits connecting large bodies of water is what makes for epic territorial dispute in the age of sail!

[@LaggingGames]

True it could be an area where sea and land are kind of in flux because of lowlands, straights, wetlands, and swamps, but still have the bay connected with the ocean through narrow straights.

[@nrdhmpste4740]

i though the exact same thing

[@captainahab5522]

I like this idea

[@thequimsnaim]

This

[@hungvu262]

like a more massive maricaibo minus the lightning since no surrounding mountains and winds. The jutting pate is similar to the caribean plate but forming a venuzeualan coastal range on both sides.

[@tadhgbarker4050]

I like the idea of that island arc in the middle being a kind of combination of species from either side, but I also like the idea of sealing off that bay area to see what happens to marine life.

[@darkhawk155]

This series is such a "grab a mug of tea and just chill" time.

[@GmodPlusWoW]

I feel like that central island arc should remain an island arc for now. It's more interesting as a semi-isolated area, and could serve as a nautical stepping stone between the two continents without being a full-on land-bridge.

[@Dragrath1]

You can get a bit of both too as during the last glacial maximum when sea levels were lower Indonesia north of the "Wallace gap" (the Sunda shelf) reconnected with Eurasia to form a large peninsula while to the south Tasmania New Guinea and the southern parts of Indonesia were reunited with Australia to form greater Australia or Sahul. Though Sunda and Sahul weren't ever directly connected to each other as there is a deep water gap between them which was even at its narrowest too far for one to see the other side in the distance due to the curvature of the Earth. That notably was the configuration that the Aboriginals used to reach Australia 50,000 years ago With computational modeling of the tomography into fluid dynamic models with physical evidence of current flow directions to calibrate them it has been shown that they had to have powered against the currents to complete that Journey so they indeed had to island hop rowing through the water to reach the next island in the distance. Only once they hopped across the chain of the lesser Sunda isles would they have been able to see Sahul. The lesser Sunda isles would have been quite an interesting place IRL back then as you had a mix of flora and fauna from both Eurasia and Sahul Komodo dragons, pygmy elephants and even the hominid Homo Floresiensis so an analog would be great for spec evo. Oh and lets not forget that the landscape of volcanic arcs due to the thin and relatively weak nature of the young arc crust is easily subject to large changes on geological time scales so you can have such an island become connected to one land mass for a time then disconnect and then have the same thing happen with the other continent and so forth.

[@toddmatteson183]

I really like the idea of smashing on the intro islands as a horn, but that bay is so charming, so I vote for a horn with a strait connecting the Mediterranean to the ocean, but perhaps this is an intermittent feature?

[@morgan0]

it being tidal could be interesting for the biology

[@morgan0]

would be like an ocean island, but still kinda connected so there would be some transfer of species from time to time, but not the easiest

[@Coconutsales]

The exciting results of the grueling hard work begins! Granted, it's still work, but the results don't require excessive tedium! Yay!

[@Dragrath1]

Its probably worth noting that the way real subduction zone arcs appear to get built up is that they accrete various terrains which can get dragged around sheered, extruded(what tends to happen to much of the accreted terrane from between two colliding continents) compressed, extended etc. Those forearc islands in particular are generally formed via accretion hence why the forearc is also called an accretionary wedge. There are also sometimes back arc basins which can arise around mature subduction arcs when the trench advances away. This notably can pull off the leading edge of a continent as has happened with the major islands of Japan which used to be part of mainland Eurasia before the underlying stagnant subducting slab dragged it away from the continent. IRL it seems you can get cycles of these back arcs forming then subducting away only to reform again later. Along arcs this can lead to some real warped mix matched terrain so feel free to squish your continental goop around to get a fun configuration. Oh an early stage bac arc basin is what is caused the Taupo volcanic zone including the namesake "supervolcano" so have fun with your volcanic landscapes. Regarding your hot spot guidelines Hawaii doesn't really fit this trend though? After all the East Pacific Rise is Earth's fastest spreading Mid Ocean Ridge so you would expect it to be small. Of course the real world difference is that hot spots aren't actually stationary as they are either associated with stagnant subducted slabs undergoing a recrystallization transition or currently remelting back into the broader planet under the heat of Earth's core at the core mantle Boundary in giant provinces known as Large Low Sheer Velocity Provinces of which there are two major ones with a number of minor ones. Incidentally the Hawaiian hot spot and the African super plume are the ones which lie roughly at the center of these vast supercontinent sized blobs. ( Also for those more detail oriented the positioning of each blob in latitude and longitude temperature and relative height/density suggests they likely correspond to the Wilson cycle and thus probably the pile up of subducted slab material around supercontinents of introversion versus extroversion. Also a few more nuances which might be useful: While erosion is very much a significant factor in the disappearance of hot spot islands the main/dominant culprit is subsidence since cold basalt is more dense than Earth's lithosphere hotspot islands start to sink back into the mantle(i.e. they are negatively buoyant) The big island the youngest of the Hawaiian islands has sank the original seafloor around 15 kilometers into the mantle if I remember correctly yeah basaltic shield volcanoes get insane and they will continue to sink with age as well its not just related to formation. Additionally note that the jagged appearance of older hot spot islands mostly has to do with edifice collapses via catastrophic landslides. There is also in the case of the Hawaiian arc a resurgence of volcanism which happens due to this sinking effectively pushing the melt within the large magma chambers up and out this is what has occurred/is occurring at or around Oahu with relatively temporally sparse (eruption episodes occurring roughly once per 40,000 years) yet relatively more explosive and siliceous volcanism. This is how Diamond head and Hanauma bay formed as Honolulu is built on top of the central caldera and magmatic conduit of the Koʻolau volcano which was mainly responsible for building up Oahu and was once the center of the island before the other half of the ancient island slid off to the ocean in a catastrophic landslide/series of landslides One last bit of connection between hot spots and volcanic arcs is that if the hot spot is close enough to a subduction zone (i.e. Samoa) then when an island in the chain begins to approach the subduction zone it can actually see a resurgence of volcanism due to sheering affects. This is because while normally transform faults don't trigger volcanic eruptions if they are near an area of upwelling magma whether it be from subduction a mid ocean ridge a hot spot or some combination there of magma can use that transform fault as a path of least resistance. Some examples of this are; 1) The Wolf Darwin lineament in the Galapagos a transform fault which has allowed the volcanoes of Wolf and Darwin islands to remain active millions of years after they should have otherwise "died"(there is also a component of Mid Ocean Ridge basalt here as the Galapagos aren't all that far away from the ridge between the Cocos and Nazca plates if I remember correctly). 2) The Salton buttes which is a rhyolitic volcano that has formed along the San Andreas towards the South in the the area known as the Salton Sea where the San Andreas starts to get closer to the East Pacific Rise. On that note the Canary islands thanks to prominent sheering points and the off center angle of the rising hot spot plume off of Africa even the older islands remain volcanically active. And lastly for those who love using complicated nuance to show off in their world building note that as we now know hotspots aren't actually stationary thy just move with the subducted slab material and or Large Low Sheer velocity Provinces(a.k.a. "slab graveyards")you can get some fun stuff related to the relative velocity vectors

[@Canada_Goose]

I'm too lazy to read a whole Wikipedia article, could you make a summary?

[@Dragrath1]

@@Canada_Goose That wasn't from Wikipedia it compiled multiple sources in my own words. But to summarize 1) Volcanic arcs largely grow via accretion of material from the subducted plate rather than just volcanic eruptions. I then provided a list of examples and related phenomenon that might interest worldbuilders. If you want these examples you got to read. 2)The hotspot trend doesn't work for Hawaii because the crustal source of the Pacific ocean the East Pacific Rise is a fast spreading ridge. This is only compensated for because of the sheer strength and size of the Hawaiian plume being far greater in magnitude than other plumes aside from the African super plume. I then provided notes and details about how and why erosion occurs the way it does on volcanic hot spot chains as well as several other hot spot volcanic chains to give a more broad profile of oceanic hot spot volcanism. Again you will have to read for details.

[@CODENAMEDERPY]

Thank you for showing us this epic world!

[@MinmusxMinmus]

What the hell I literally just finished binge watching the entire series, thinking "Huh, I guess I'll have to wait a while until the next episode"

[@styxdragoncharon4003]

One thing that you may not know is that hot spots often have multiple chains of volcanos. Hawaii for instance has the Loa and Kea chain. You can clearly see from the geography if you know what you are looking for. These different chains have different types of eruptions that make different types of volcanoes.

[@yipperson2974]

i really hope you make an evolutionary history of this planet because that would be awesome

[@haydenlane-davies4649]

I found this series through the last episode and binged it, excited to see this incredible project continue!

[@Bryzerse]

I actually really like that separate island chain you were reconsidering at the beginning, though it maybe could be better curved into by the continent if you know what I mean

[@GrayderFox]

I like Horn Island. I wanna see what's in that bay. I wanna see what's on these islands, they're really interesting shapes. Wanna see what's on this world in general. :D

[@ATOM-vv3xu]

I love Oceania-style islands, was rly looking forward to this

[@gabrielneves1207]

The idea of the island arc in the middle is cool it looks sort of funky in a naturalistic kind of way

[@elysainempire4628]

i vote for keeping the island arc, it could lead to some interesting cross exchanges

[@AangleFish9964]

I think connecting the island arc around 1:39 to the continent would be cool cause it could make the continent look kinda like a bird.

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

For some reason, I like this little island. It has a nice, transitionary function. Also, the way the continent are positoned would probably give...interesting transitions. Plus, the large seas would probably be a good habitat for many cool fantasy creatures.

[@jayayerson8819]

1:37 I would like to see a 3-way narrow strait at the entrance to the bay, creating a perfect spot for a fortified trade city built across 3 peninsulas.

[@purplemosasaurus5987]

Thanks for putting all the world info on the website!

[@GalaxyGuy12]

1:30 I like a bridging island arc but yeah that just looks weird. To clarify, I don't know whether an island like that is realistic or not, I'm just saying it being perpendicular to both continents just kinda looks strange.

[@annikathewitch3950]

This might be a little late, but there's an issue with the way you're modeling hotspot island chains. A distance of 700 km between arrows 10 million years apart in age means the plate above the hotspot is moving at a speed of 7 cm/year, which is on the low end of the Pacific Plate's speed. Essentially, island chains on the plates you've listed as fast-moving should be like Hawaii, which means island chains on the plates moving slower should have even larger islands and longer chains than that.

[@GrayVBoat]

I'm curious about something: I know you've said previously that you're not worrying about anything below sea level, which makes sense for the world you're building in this series. However, is there a chance you could provide some examples for those of us who want to make aquatic worlds? In my case, I don't plan on creating a full-on ocean world (for reference, it's going to be Earth-like), but I do want to explore what an underwater civilization would be like, and I need some topology to work with. Plus, it'd be really interesting to see how tectonic activity affects oceanic crust beyond simple subduction and mid-ocean ridges. I imagine it's relatively flat compared to land, but surely there's something for you to show us?

[@Jpteryx]

Near shore, continental coastlines slope gently into the continental shelf, which then transitions into the continental slope, which slopes down to the abyssal plain. Passive margins have large continental shelves and slopes, while active margins have very narrow continental shelves and slopes. Continental shelves and slopes can have very deep submarine canyons cutting through them, which are analogous to rivers on land and carry rivers of sediment. When these reach the abyssal plain, they deposit fans of sediment, analogous to river deltas. Anywhere islands occur, there will probably be many seamounts: underwater mountains not quite tall enough to be islands. Hotspots will create tons of these. You've probably heard of the long seamount chains along mid-ocean ridges and the trenches that appear where oceanic crust is subducted.

[@diegoscb]

I gasped when I saw this came up

[@Not_Dane_Heart]

glue it on!

[@BenMcGinn-tq3um]

I really need this stuff

[@alex-ns7jj]

YEEEA ❤

[@KianaWolf]

I'm in favor of closing off the bay entirely into its own isolated sea, as per a prior comment I've made. Also: Very aesthetically appealing island arc designed this video, in my opinion.

[@digital_matt]

1:41 my answer is the same thing i say during the masked singer. Glue it on!!

[@marissonsoneur8700]

I'm sometimes wondering why you don't make more videos, then I realise that me, who isn't doing any video, blog or any other additional work, is still doing my crappy tectonic simulation, so, in fact, you quite fast

[@Planetkid32]

While I think the habitable planet is coming along nicely, I’m curious myself as to if we might get focus on the other planets (plus dwarf planets), their orbits, and their systems (in case anyone wants to simulate them in a 3D space simulator software like Celestia).

[@fronk850]

I think the island should connect more to the mainland. Also, the major island arc looks a bit too neat imo. Looking at similar places like Indonesia, which similarly have a continental plate subducting two oceanic plates perpendicular to each other, you can see that there's parts of the island more inland than just the outer edge, which I think is attributable to the fact that there's not just one neat subducting boundary, but rather a complex buckle of subducting zones, even plates subducting parts of themselves (with transform boundaries ofc), as well as bending and twisting the angles at which the microplates subduct. With all of this in mind, it seems like there's a fair bit of creative freedom when it comes to subducting microcontinents. I think it'd look more interesting and natural if there was just a little something going on between the arc and the mainland. Just a few little odd shaped ones to add some spice. Pretty much everything looks great though! Excited to see the results of the coasts and stuff too.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

I have a question regarding mid-ocean crust; is it absolutely necessary to simulate the creation and movement of mid-ocean crust at the same time you're simulating the formation of landmasses? Or can you do the landmasses first, then go back and work on mid-ocean crust after the fact?

[@Jpteryx]

I would recommend simulating both simultaneously, since without simulating oceanic plates you won't know when a mid-ocean ridge is subducted, which both leads to closure of an ocean and can create large mountain ranges.

[@erikno2992]

Finally, movement

[@Schody_lol]

Bro really made Indonesia²

[@morgan0]

does the angle of two subducting oceanic plates affect the land that’s brought up? like would the top plate fold and buckle differently?

[@Dragrath1]

Its very complicated Edgar seem to have just not addressed this which given that this is an active area of study and things get supercomplicated I can't blame him. For one the architecture of a subduction arc changes over time in part due to interactions like these but also because real world convergent and divergent boundaries often have some component of transverse slippage. But the angle of subduction is of particular importance as when it shifts dramatic things happen after all the slippage of a subducting plate is the cause of the infamous megathrust Earthquakes and their tendency to generate powerful far reaching Tsunami's this also leads to acute changes in height as the overlying slab can relax which may mean more than a 10 meter drop of the coastline. But when you add a change in the angle of subduction this leads to overall changes in the rate of volcanism such as how the steepening of the slab rollback leads to an surge in volcanism via what is termed a flare up as the moment of the plate allows the asthenosphere to fill in the gap and thus generating more melt. There are both cyclic and noncyclic variations of this with many details to still be worked out as these kinds of changes take place on much longer timescales.

[@danthiel8623]

nice 👍

[@Technofier]

Would it be possible to create a P-type binary system version of the Worldsmith? At the moment I'm jury-rigging it in, but it would be nice to have an 'official' version for P-type binaries for those of us wanting to create our own 'Tatooines'.

[@taimao2]

I love this. Worldbuilding Pasta just finished a commission for me so now I will start working on details like this. However, I didn't see the island arc calculator in wordsmith. Is the a newer version than 5.0 that I am not seeing.

[@spiritgaming1442]

I know im a bit late, but essentially, you have to create your own page for continental crust. Then, just use Artifexias as a reference.

[@yellow-perse]

@@spiritgaming1442 how do we do that without all the formulas ?

[@spiritgaming1442]

@yellow-perse you can see the formulas in the video when ge click on a square look at the top left part of Google sheets. Though some things might need interpretation or research.

[@htth3152]

I'd vote for the island ark and the mini-Australia to be merged. Just for a more interesting shape

[@caffetiel]

just occurred to me that I want to have a Chicxulub sort of event. How would that be done in gplates?

[@morlath4767]

I won't lie, Edgar, I'm a little disappointed. I think too many people complained about Gplate to the point where you've done a lot off camera that I'd have liked to seen in real time. Or at least, have you talking about each part for longer than you are in this video - island arc speeds for one, as I'll need to rewatch that part a few times to catch everything you're shooting through. I get people were getting bored of GPlates, but you were showing us the nitty gritty effort need to do world building and how it's not a glamourous wham-bam new world done situation.

[@Artifexian]

Yeah, I see where you are coming from. It's such a hard thing to balance on my end. Personally, I thought I did a pretty decent job in this one.

[@morlath4767]

@@Artifexian And that's totally fair. I don't mean to come across as ungrateful, either. I'd still loving the series.

[@morlath4767]

@@Me-yq1fl And that's fine. But Edgar started the entire series warning viewers that he was going in-depth and we could pick and choose what to use. I, for one, absolutely _do_ want to do the entire process, and it feels like people got bored of the nitty-gritty part of GPlates he warned us about and wouldn't stop complaining about moving on to the "fun stuff." The way I see it, it's easier to skip some videos in a tutorial series when it covers sections you aren't going to follow, than have the series be quick-fired done to appease those skippers. I get it's hard from his side of things, but I was deeply invested in the GPlates creation and I feel like I got short changed in the last couple of vids because some people wanted to never see the program again.

[@platannapipidae9621]

can you put videos in this playlist from first to last, because i don't want to do it manually each time i want to binge it.

[@TAP7a]

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE MORE ISLANDS

[@pietropietro1230]

Why are some parts of the island black?

[@hungvu262]

9:00 looks like tongan arc

[@shinhook2k280]

Cool new intro?

[@starryeyedsystem]

EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[@rojaq_art]

I think the in question island arc as it is looks weird and think it would look better attached.

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

For some reason, I would be exited to have climate zones for this modern world.

[@toddmatteson183]

I'm sure those will be on their way once the landforms and shelf shapes are finalized.

[@Artifexian]

Yup!

[@vincentcleaver1925]

Yt hid this from me this morning

[@sono_chi_no_sodium_chlorid7635]

Will you get into stuff like magic too?

[@samuelbaumann1068]

Great video as always🥳 I was wondering, are you gonna evolve magic and or deities? If so wouldn't it make sense to form leylines on the map to start from there?

[@BenMcGinn-tq3um]

Make more videos pls

[@kadenvanciel9335]

Who's Udo?

[@Artifexian]

My brother :)

[@sontsetgaleler6701]

Hard

[@LeanSt]

I have questions, is this planet going to have magic?

[@orsonzedd]

Horn horn horn

[@owenschulz9504]

These videos are like crack

[@battyboio]

so many unnecessary videos on the same thing, we'll never get to the spec evo and humans

[@charlottemarrie5911]

Patience is a virtue well learned. If you just want Spec Evo, watch Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres videos while you wait. The two collaborated on it anyways, and probably are on this too (I would assume.) Calling this all "unnecessary" only serves to make you look infinitesimally more rude and ignorant. From the start, Edgar stated that this would be a series about "Geofiction, Spec Bio, and Conlanging" and as such you should have expected this. Yes, he is covering parts of the subject of Geofiction he has already covered to some degree before, in his earlier videos where he gives a tutorial on how to use GPlates, however, this is not entirely "the same thing." This is him fleshing out the world to his liking so he can begin the process of Spec Evo. After all, if I remember correctly, he did state that he commissioned Worldbuilding Pasta to make the world; and spent that time between the commission and completion to provide us with a tutorial on GPlates.

[@battyboio]

@@charlottemarrie5911 I don't want just Spec evo. I want spec evo, seeing human shenanigans and good story telling. The formatting of these videos is boring and borderline unwatchable. It's a snooze-fest. I can see why all this is important, every creator has to put some thought in it as it can effect a lot. But I don't think 10+ episodes on the same subject is necessarily needed. You can achieve it in fewer videos. GPlates just isn't a good program and his ignorance within some comments shows. He said that simulating tectonic plates isn't a good option and you should just do it yourself eventhough actual scientists use simulations for this very thing. This series isn't very good, and the constantly declining views compared to his much better videos just really shows that. This series feels unfinished and not thought out. It's long and boring. His other content had good editing, scripts and such. This has nothing. It's nearly as bad as Biblaridions conglang showcase videos on Google sheets You can learn all about this with a simple Google search and Wikipedia article. 10+ videos on essentially the same thing is boring and unnecessary, and the views are proving that :/

[@alex-ns7jj]

@@battyboio please just go away ...

[@Coconutsales]

​@@battyboio This is meant as a step by step start-to-finish for people to follow along. If you're not enjoying following along then go do your own thing on your own time and quit whinging here. Like seriously, stop being such an entitled brat. Some of us properly pay for this on his Patreon, and unless you do too you have no say. You can just close your eyes LMAO

[@battyboio]

@@alex-ns7jj no