Kerbin Geographical society

[Rath]

How about 'coast crater'? 

Or maybe designations?

[The_Rocketeer]

47 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

Okay, now your just drawing circles.

 

Yes, circles that follow evidence on the surface. I grant you 100% that these are absolutely conjecture (after all, every single thing in this thread will be), but since I can't actually go there and do geochemical analyses of the rocks and strata I'm making the best guesses I can - guesses which, by the way, are often borne out in RL on Earth's own craters. Here's an example: the 28km (diameter) Mistastin Crater, in Canada, which is barely circular and looks like an irregular mountain lake with an island in it.
 

Spoiler

Or another, the Suavjarvi Crater in Russia, 16km across:
 

Spoiler

Or the Vredefort Crater in South Africa, 300km (!) across.

Spoiler

 

 

None of these craters are staringly obvious until one looks closely and makes a leap of conjecture which happens to turn out to be right.

Edit: Another one, Sudbury Basin, the 2nd largest crater and one of the oldest on Earth - shaped like a human liver, i.e. not circular.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited May 15, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[nosirrbro]

11 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Yes, circles that follow evidence on the surface. I grant you 100% that these are absolutely conjecture (after all, every single thing in this thread will be), but since I can't actually go there and do geochemical analyses of the rocks and strata I'm making the best guesses I can - guesses which, by the way, are often borne out in RL on Earth's own craters. Here's an example: the 28km (diameter) Mistastin Crater, in Canada, which is barely circular and looks like an irregular mountain lake with an island in it.
 

  Hide contents

Or another, the Suavjarvi Crater in Russia, 16km across:
 

  Hide contents

Or the Vredefort Crater in South Africa, 300km (!) across.

  Hide contents

 

 

None of these craters are staringly obvious until one looks closely and makes a leap of conjecture which happens to turn out to be right.

Edit: Another one, Sudbury Basin, the 2nd largest crater and one of the oldest on Earth - shaped like a human liver, i.e. not circular.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Alright, but what about of the thousands of other vaguely circularly shaped features on the surface of Earth? The chance that all the ones you are highlighting are actually crateres is essentially zero, and then that leaves no room for any lakes that arent craters anywhere on Kerbin; they are candidates sure but I figure we should assume without more data that, due to mere statistical analasys, only the more obvious ones should be considered craters or related to craters. Others can be considered as candidate craters, although some more likely than others *cough*NW ocean*cough*

[The_Rocketeer]

@nosirrbro, I don't think I've said anywhere that anything was categorically a crater, what I'm suggesting is that there are a lot of places of Kerbin that could be massive impact craters, and backing up @bewing in saying that there are a large number of possible crater locations. Now, if you can posit a better theory - I don't mean a general 'well it's probably just a natural ocean' or 'well, it's just mountains', but an actual, scientific causal theory of process - about how some of these features developed or what caused them to be the shape they are, please go ahead. Then anyone that wants to can compare the two theories (yours and mine) with anybody else's and decide which they think is more likely.

So far all you've done is pull down my theories with a lot of noise and criticism. I'm happy to be countered with alternative ideas, but I'm not really very happy to have my imagination damped by your lack of the same. If you can't be more receptive and appreciative to these ideas, mine and others', maybe you're in the wrong thread.

Edit: I'd also add that, just because a feature happens to be a crater, it doesn't mean that it doesn't also happen to be a very interesting natural sea, lake, mountain range or open plain. Geography has features within features within features. I'm working on a huge scale with some of my ideas, but that doesn't mean than everything inside the area I'm naming is 'claimed' and can't be further dissected.

Also, consider for a second how many craters there are on Mun, and how small it is compared with Kerbin. Mun has (probably - it's a game after all) been subjected to the same bombardments that Kerbin has. Why, then, should craters on Kerbin be particularly scarce, especially since so far we have no strong case for either weather or plate tectonics on Kerbin. (Note: I'm not saying we should discount the possibility of those processes, but so far I've seen nobody post a theory of plate boundaries or a water cycle).

Edited May 16, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[nosirrbro]

25 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@nosirrbro, I don't think I've said anywhere that anything was categorically a crater, what I'm suggesting is that there are a lot of places of Kerbin that could be supermassive impact craters, and backing up @bewing in saying that there are a large number of possible crater locations. Now, if you can posit a better theory - I don't mean a general 'well it's probably just a natural ocean' or 'well, it's just mountains', but an actual, scientific causal theory of process - about how some of these features developed or what caused them to be the shape they are, please go ahead. Then anyone that wants to can compare the two theories (yours and mine) with anybody else's and decide which they think is more likely.

So far all you've done is pull down my theories with a lot of noise and criticism. I'm happy to be countered with alternative ideas, but I'm not really very happy to have my imagination damped by your lack of the same. If you can't be more receptive and appreciative to these ideas, mine and others', maybe you're in the wrong thread.

Well it seems I thought you were saying that they all were craters, and that was a bit of a misunderstanding. However, using the tactic of making my statements seeming like just a random assumption can be used both ways as well you know, 'well its probably just a crater'. Now, if were done with the statement manipulation, I can certainly say some things about how many of the structures could have formed naturally.

1. That looks like normal tectonic continent formation to me, it appears the two continets seem to be moving away from eachother and in doing that created a depression, leading to an inland sea. The spain looking peninsula looks very much like it used to be connected to the area below and to the left to it and got ripped apart from it.

2. While there is a curve in parts, the right side seems relatively not too much part of it. This one does seem relavitely possible , however a rather cracled tectonic area over here plus some water erosion seems as a seperate possible explanation. Also, the central 'peak' seems much to large, spread out and variable to be from an impact.

3. Especially with the central peak being offcenter and most of the 'edges' being mountain ranges that extend quite far, this one does not seem plausible and is a case of mountains whos edges when a point is placed on them form a half circle, and not an impact.

4. This one actually has legitimacy, it is very possible this lake was formed by an impact, especially with what looks similar to a central peak. It is also possbile that it formed just as any normal one does, a slightly lower part of land gets eroded by water, further deepness sends streams heading towards it speeding up its erosion, etc. If any of these were to be an impact, it would be this one.

5. Probably the least likely of them all, there see ms no indication of an impact on half of the indicated outline and the central peak is actually lower than its surroundings. General random mountain formation explains this one away easy.

6. To me this looks more like four mountain ranges forming independantly that, since they are 4, make 4 points on their edges that you could theoretically turn into a circle. But none of the ranges would extend as far as they do if it were an impact, and in the places where a range isnt present the altitude is quite low. This one and 4 seem to be automatically disproven due to a lack of any real evidence.

7.The long chain of mountains and small curves on the side seem to be two large condinents with relatively flat sides colliding with alot of force, and at the ends part of the continents appear to have moved a little more forward than the others.

 

And im not trying to destroy any creativity, however this thread is about a science and in science there must be scrutiny. If you want to be speculative and incur no scrutiny from others (After all, seeing if something stands up to scrutiny is one of the best ways of finding truth), then maybe this is the wrong thread for you.

(Just to be clear I dont want you to leave, but dont tell me to leave either just because I scrutinize things)

Edited May 16, 2016 by nosirrbro

[The_Rocketeer]

@nosirrbro, it makes me sad that your response to my suggestion that you proffer theories of your own was to start by once again deconstructing mine. You seem to be speaking with absolute authority on matters which you have so far shown little knowledge or understanding of.

Nothing whatsoever in this thread will stand up to any serious scrutiny at all. Subjecting it to scrutiny and expecting to find 'the truth' is absurd. No meteorites have ever altered Kerbin's surface geography, no volcanoes have erupted, no tectonic plates have subducted. Rivers do not flow, and rain does not fall on Kerbin. This is obviously to be accepted before we begin to exercise our imaginations and postulate theories about the formation of 'Kerbin in the time of KSP'.

Kerbin has only one crater that looks like a perfect crater, as found on Mun and elsewhere. All of the rest are contentious - that doesn't mean that any the other possible locations should be dismissed. Yet, rather than accepting my ideas and being willing to believe them or evolve them (as for example I did with @Matuchkin's), or at least offer flat non-critical alternatives, you seem determined to undermine my creativity, despite your protestations to the contrary. I was enjoying finding a new appreciation for some details of Kerbin's surface - I even have some plate tectonic thoughts of my own concerning interlocking coastal regions - but in light of your offensive approach to discussing these possibilities, I'm not sure participation in this thread is really any fun.

[nosirrbro]

 

5 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@nosirrbro, it makes me sad that your response to my suggestion that you proffer theories of your own was to start by once again deconstructing mine. You seem to be speaking with absolute authority on matters which you have so far shown little knowledge or understanding of.

Nothing whatsoever in this thread will stand up to any serious scrutiny at all. Subjecting it to scrutiny and expecting to find 'the truth' is absurd. No meteorites have ever altered Kerbin's surface geography, no volcanoes have erupted, no tectonic plates have subducted. Rivers do not flow, and rain does not fall on Kerbin. This is obviously to be accepted before we begin to exercise our imaginations and postulate theories about the formation of 'Kerbin in the time of KSP'.

Kerbin has only one crater that looks like a perfect crater, as found on Mun and elsewhere. All of the rest are contentious - that doesn't mean that any the other possible locations should be dismissed. Yet, rather than accepting my ideas and being willing to believe them or evolve them (as for example I did with @Matuchkin's), or at least offer flat non-critical alternatives, you seem determined to undermine my creativity, despite your protestations to the contrary. I was enjoying finding a new appreciation for some details of Kerbin's surface - I even have some plate tectonic thoughts of my own concerning interlocking coastal regions - but in light of your offensive approach to discussing these possibilities, I'm not sure participation in this thread is really any fun.

So essentially your saying to ignore your statements if I disagree so I dont harm your creativity? Who says the natural sculpting of millions of years of tectonic shifting (Which the actual existance of is something to discuss due to the perfectness of the Kerbin crater making it seem newer than it s hould be), water erosion and other forces aren't creative? I am just giving my opinion, and to me most of those things look like products of the afformentioned forces, however some of them (especially the lake) are very much possible to be impacts, and the lake after standning up to my scrutiny seems even stronger as a posibility. Having now locked onto the most plausible, we can further our ideas on this. It does not and has not been made to be negative.

Also, Kerbin has alot more than craters.

[The_Rocketeer]

Just now, nosirrbro said:

So essentially your saying to ignore your statements if I disagree so I dont harm your creativity?

In a word, yes. What's the point of this thread if not to exercise creativity? (It's certainly not about finding facts.) If you disagree, suggest something else, something better, but don't do it scornfully or dismissively, and don't cast judgment on my line of thought. It might seem dumb to you, but maybe it's a big deal to me, maybe I put a lot of thought into it and thought it all seemed pretty solid.  Even if I thought it was a bit shakey (actually the truth) it's not nice to have someone instantly crap all over something you came up with and ventured to put out there for the world to consider. Making that imgur album didn't take zero time, you know.

What I'd really like is to reach consensus without having someone else arbitrating what's ok and what's not. Maybe I have a theory that non-native space pixies made the mountains near the north pole by excavating for pixie-dust, and the crashed UFO was their ship. Ok, so it's silly, but don't say it's silly, say some other cause and let me be the one to say my silly idea was silly and yours is far better. On the other hand, if I want to devote time to reinforcing my case and making it as legitimate as possible, why shouldn't I? Being told it's daft at the outset doesn't make it any easier to build a convincing, elaborate theory out of not a lot.

And if we're not going to build a convincing, elaborate theory, what's the point?

[Matuchkin]

1 hour ago, nosirrbro said:

Others can be considered as candidate craters, although some more likely than others *cough*NW ocean*cough*

NW Ocean? Let's see. Post a picture please...

[Whirligig Girl]

Is this thread restricted to speculation about Kerbin or are other planets fair game as well?

Everyone seems to be focusing on craters and shockwaves that accompany them, and that's fine. But what the heck is up with the "K2" mountain range? The big ones west of KSC? They seem to be awfully tall and jagged for mountains.

Now I am by no means an expert on geology, but it seems to me that mountains of these kinds can not be formed volcanically, but rather from interactions between tectonic plate boundaries. So where are the tectonic plate boundaries? Right now Kerbin seems to be in a very scattered but completely connected single "pangea" landmass with a single, fully connected ocean. Under the idea that mountains form near plate tectonics, I propose the following diagram of Kerbin's tectonic map.

Why do I think Kerbin has tectonics in the first place? Well the planet (at proper 10x scale) is really dense. Denser than Earth in fact. That implies a large iron core. Kerbin's iron core must have been created by a Mun-forming impact much like the Earth's large iron core was created by a Moon-forming impact. When the two impactors collided to form Kerbin, the large iron cores mixed together while the mantles and crusts of the two planets mostly went into forming the Mun. This would have the side effect not just of making a large iron core, but making a large and hot iron core. This would make the insides of the planet hot (and also produce a magnetic field to shield the life we know to exist on Kerbin from the hazardous solar radiation). This hot planet would thus have plate tectonics, just like Earth. But it sure as heck isn't visually obvious!

Edited May 16, 2016 by GregroxMun

[nosirrbro]

52 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

In a word, yes. What's the point of this thread if not to exercise creativity? (It's certainly not about finding facts.) If you disagree, suggest something else, something better, but don't do it scornfully or dismissively, and don't cast judgment on my line of thought. It might seem dumb to you, but maybe it's a big deal to me, maybe I put a lot of thought into it and thought it all seemed pretty solid.  Even if I thought it was a bit shakey (actually the truth) it's not nice to have someone instantly crap all over something you came up with and ventured to put out there for the world to consider. Making that imgur album didn't take zero time, you know.

What I'd really like is to reach consensus without having someone else arbitrating what's ok and what's not. Maybe I have a theory that non-native space pixies made the mountains near the north pole by excavating for pixie-dust, and the crashed UFO was their ship. Ok, so it's silly, but don't say it's silly, say some other cause and let me be the one to say my silly idea was silly and yours is far better. On the other hand, if I want to devote time to reinforcing my case and making it as legitimate as possible, why shouldn't I? Being told it's daft at the outset doesn't make it any easier to build a convincing, elaborate theory out of not a lot.

And if we're not going to build a convincing, elaborate theory, what's the point?

Im not 'scornfully dismissing your claims'

Or at least if it seems that way do know I don't mean it. I just want to have a logical discussion about this quite interesting topic, and such discussions are meant to build such a theory, thats why I'm even here.

[Whirligig Girl]

Come on now, let's not have an argument about dismissing claims and silliness, let's just have an argument about why there's so much water on Kerbin, and if we can do anything about it.

[Matuchkin]

1 hour ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Nothing whatsoever in this thread will stand up to any serious scrutiny at all. Subjecting it to scrutiny and expecting to find 'the truth' is absurd. No meteorites have ever altered Kerbin's surface geography, no volcanoes have erupted, no tectonic plates have subducted. Rivers do not flow, and rain does not fall on Kerbin. This is obviously to be accepted before we begin to exercise our imaginations and postulate theories about the formation of 'Kerbin in the time of KSP'.

I see your thoughts, but I think that Kerbin was made to look like a realistic planet, with actual stuff happening on it. I mean, sure, no meteorites have ever collided with Kerbin, but here you go, a huge crater in the middle of the planet (Kerbin Crater). Or take this:

http://imgur.com/a/SCxmQ

Those are all very detailed examples of water motion. Pictures 1 and 2 show water, accumulating and flowing out of a mountain range. Picture 3 looks like a direct Great Lakes reference. Picture 4 shows an actual river system, complete with drainage basins and runoffs. Some locations on Kerbin strongly indicate tectonic and glacial movement. 

And yet, nothing moves on Kerbin.

Even though Kerbin is completely static in time, the only purpose of that is because it will be unnecessarily complex if Kerbin worked like an actual planet in real-time. However, Kerbin was generated with very good scientific accuracy. We have to treat Kerbin as if it functions like an actual planet, because that is how it was programmed. Think of it as being given a still-life of an actual planet. That still-life "photo" perfectly displays nearly every property the real planet has, and is still analysable.

However, acting like nosirrbro is not a good idea, and all of your assumptions have very good reason. I actually find myself agreeing with most of your crater candidates, as craters can appear in any form, at any location, and are actually quite common.

17 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

 

Is this thread restricted to speculation about Kerbin or are other planets fair game as well?

Everyone seems to be focusing on craters and shockwaves that accompany them, and that's fine. But what the heck is up with the "K2" mountain range? The big ones west of KSC? They seem to be awfully tall and jagged for mountains.

Now I am by no means an expert on geology, but it seems to me that mountains of these kinds can not be formed volcanically, but rather from interactions between tectonic plate boundaries. So where are the tectonic plate boundaries? Right now Kerbin seems to be in a very scattered but completely connected single "pangea" landmass with a single, fully connected ocean. Under the idea that mountains form near plate tectonics, I propose the following diagram of Kerbin's tectonic map.

 

Nice thoughts, but at what means did you create the plates? I say I will start out by creating images of where intersections can possibly be. I'll check out maps, and see what hypothesis I can cook up. Meanwhile, nice thinking!

Edited May 16, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Whirligig Girl]

9 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

means did you create the plates? I'll check out maps, and see what hypothesis I can cook up. Meanwhile, nice thinking!

I looked at a real plate map, then drew pseudo-random lines, each going through mountains at certain parts.

[nosirrbro]

10 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

However, acting like nosirrbro is not a good idea, and all of your assumptions have very good reason. I actually find myself agreeing with most of your crater candidates, as craters can appear in any form, at any location, and are actually quite common.

After reviewing  my previous posts I see that it did come off a bit harsh, but I assure you that it was not intended that way and im sorry for anything I didn't mean to convey.

Now that all that is cleared up, I'm going to Kerbalmaps and flying around in a plane to find some geographical anomolies (NOT easter eggs. Those wont be discussed here, except maybe the pyramid)

[Matuchkin]

5 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

After reviewing  my previous posts I see that it did come off a bit harsh, but I assure you that it was not intended that way and im sorry for anything I didn't mean to convey.

Now that all that is cleared up, I'm going to Kerbalmaps and flying around in a plane to find some geographical anomolies (NOT easter eggs. Those wont be discussed here, except maybe the pyramid)

Nice! I'd like to recommend a few locations, in order to check elevations for some further hypotheses. May I? Oi, nevermind, don't have time for that yet.

By the way, don't worry about the harshness. I've been much worse sometimes, modders will know...

Edited May 16, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Matuchkin]

19 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

I looked at a real plate map, then drew pseudo-random lines, each going through mountains at certain parts.

Huh. You should try looking more at continental divides, island chain formation, and mountain chain direction, as well as where the tallest mountains are, the deepest points of the oceans, etc. I put some half-baked lines, speculating on where there is evidence of plate boundaries. Minimal evidence used, as of now, because I have to go to bed. G'night, fellow geologists...

[Rath]

The farthest Down line was actually a very nice find.  Now that I see it stretching to the right is fairly visible

[Rath]

The 'Japan' islands could actually be the intersection of several plates.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Japan

 

The main island would have began to the right of the pensiula directly above, while the rest of the islands  would go the left.

this is just raising another possibility, I don't really care wether it's legit.

[Matuchkin]

Wait, please specify what you mean by "Japan Islands".

[FleshJeb]

19 hours ago, nosirrbro said:

Now that all that is cleared up, I'm going to Kerbalmaps and flying around in a plane to find some geographical anomolies (NOT easter eggs. Those wont be discussed here, except maybe the pyramid)

Look at the mountains north of "India" (I call them the Kimalayas). There's some great flying up there. They're at the intersection of Greg's Western, Northern, and Desert Plates.

The lake system west of Derbo's Plate is beautiful as well.

[nosirrbro]

My current Kerbin geological mystery: How does this exist?

This island made purely of ice is an extremely strange one. Being bigger than most islands it obviously isnt any sort of iceberg, and it appears to be large enough that no major drifting around the ocean is occuring. The sides seem far to smooth for it to have seperated and inexplicably moved away from the main ice of the antarctic added onto the fact the island does not appear to move due to its monstorous size, however if it was able to form naturally in its current position, surely the large amounts of water between it and the antarctic ice would have frozen over too, or else it would have probably melted if that area was too warm for ice formation. Due to Kerbin's lack of seasons, Ice tends to never grow or recede and is stable in its current position, however this island of ice seems far from that. Any thoughts on how this can exist, and what caused its formation?

5 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

Look at the mountains north of "India" (I call them the Kimalayas). There's some great flying up there. They're at the intersection of Greg's Western, Northern, and Desert Plates.

The lake system west of Derbo's Plate is beautiful as well.

What is inda? Use pictures not country names

[The_Rocketeer]

11 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

My current Kerbin geological mystery: How does this exist?

Good spot.

Here's another picture (from a south-polar projection):



It seems to me that in several places, peninsulas of the southern ice-cap are detaching from the main body.

Perhaps this time in Kerbin's history is a period of somewhat-increased sun activity, causing a steady rapid-rate shrinking of the ice-sheets?

Edited May 16, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[nosirrbro]

Just now, The_Rocketeer said:

Good spot.

Here's a slightly larger picture (from a south-polar projection):



It seems to me that in several places, peninsulas of the southern ice-cap are detaching from the main body.

Perhaps this time in Kerbin's history is a period of somewhat-increased sun activity, causing a steady rapid-rate shrinking of the ice-sheets?

How are you getting these awesome graphics? Kerbalmaps does not provide these things

[The_Rocketeer]

Just now, nosirrbro said:

How are you getting these awesome graphics? Kerbalmaps does not provide these things

Some time ago I came across this elevation map of Kerbin and 'collected' it. It may in fact be out of date now.
 

Spoiler

A little hunting turned it up here (on the wiki).

It has occurred to me that the underwater heightmaps from this elevation map could be used to find extrusion ridges and deep-ocean trenches indicating tectonic plate boundaries. For sure, the 'smiley-face' ocean looks like it's probably one whole oceanic plate, similar to the Pacific plate.