Kerbin Geographical society

[Brofessional]

You guys know Kerbin is just a mirrored version of the example map for libnoise, right?  It's been tweaked a little over time, but most of it isn't hand-crafted.

http://libnoise.sourceforge.net/examples/complexplanet/index.html

[msasterisk]

3 minutes ago, Brofessional said:

You guys know Kerbin is just a mirrored version of the example map for libnoise, right?  It's been tweaked a little over time, but most of it isn't hand-crafted.

http://libnoise.sourceforge.net/examples/complexplanet/index.html

We know. But libnoise is meant to be realistic. We're seeing how it's realistic. Does that make sense?

[Rath]

Guys, I tried to make an underwater rover to see if kerbin has a continental shelf, but It cannot move faster than 1m/s on slopes, even with a rocket.

[bewing]

14 hours ago, nosirrbro said:

Third? I thought there were only two, this one, the biggest, and the more visible one. Where is the other crater?

Any geologist who looks for meteor craters will tell you to look for features that are "suspiciously circular". The craters on Mun are thick and random. If you really look at Kerbin, you will find craters here, there, and everywhere -- just like the Mun. They look very similar. They are just green instead of gray. The badlands (both on the other side of the planet, and the little one at the south end of the KSC continent) are both craters. The north pole is a crater. If you look on a smaller scale, you will see them everywhere, of all sizes. Thousands and thousands and thousands. Not particularly weather eroded, either -- so they are recent. A recent heavy bombardment ... with whatever additional you want to read into that. Look for suspiciously circular rings of mountains or hills, and figure out where the center would be.

 

But, as far as rivers go -- the tributaries that flow into the rivers are usually pointing in the wrong direction. And most of the rivers are blocked with landslides for some reason. But clearly, Kerbin was warmer in the recent past, and sea levels were higher. But now all that water is locked up in the 30 meter high ice caps.

Edited May 5, 2016 by bewing

[nosirrbro]

6 hours ago, bewing said:

Any geologist who looks for meteor craters will tell you to look for features that are "suspiciously circular". The craters on Mun are thick and random. If you really look at Kerbin, you will find craters here, there, and everywhere -- just like the Mun. They look very similar. They are just green instead of gray. The badlands (both on the other side of the planet, and the little one at the south end of the KSC continent) are both craters. The north pole is a crater. If you look on a smaller scale, you will see them everywhere, of all sizes. Thousands and thousands and thousands. Not particularly weather eroded, either -- so they are recent. A recent heavy bombardment ... with whatever additional you want to read into that. Look for suspiciously circular rings of mountains or hills, and figure out where the center would be.

 

But, as far as rivers go -- the tributaries that flow into the rivers are usually pointing in the wrong direction. And most of the rivers are blocked with landslides for some reason. But clearly, Kerbin was warmer in the recent past, and sea levels were higher. But now all that water is locked up in the 30 meter high ice caps.

1. I was talking about large ones

2. Your mixing up craters with dried up lakes and random hill formation, there are defiantly not thousands and thousands of them

3. Where are you seeing this crater on the KSC continent?

Edited May 5, 2016 by nosirrbro

[Rath]

Having just got back from a week-long jungle trek in Sabah, I finally got a chance to look a kerbins geology.  

Speaking of geology, in Sabah there are these weird little hills (actually bumps on mountains, because we where in the highlands) with water on the tops.  According to the locals they have been there forever, and because there has never been a large civilization in Sabah that would need irrigation on that scale, they are probably natural.  Interesting little factoid.

 

looking a kerbalmaps it turns that there is a tiny straight separating kerbins two oceans.  Whoever controlled that wold have more diplomatic negotiating power that they could ever use.

[nosirrbro]

8 hours ago, Rath said:

Having just got back from a week-long jungle trek in Sabah, I finally got a chance to look a kerbins geology.  

Speaking of geology, in Sabah there are these weird little hills (actually bumps on mountains, because we where in the highlands) with water on the tops.  According to the locals they have been there forever, and because there has never been a large civilization in Sabah that would need irrigation on that scale, they are probably natural.  Interesting little factoid.

 

looking a kerbalmaps it turns that there is a tiny straight separating kerbins two oceans.  Whoever controlled that wold have more diplomatic negotiating power that they could ever use.

And which straight would that be? What oceans? An official catologue of oceans hasnt yet been made.

[The_Rocketeer]

On 05/05/2016 at 3:31 PM, nosirrbro said:

2. Your mixing up craters with dried up lakes and random hill formation, there are defiantly not thousands and thousands of them

3. Where are you seeing this crater on the KSC continent?

I'm pretty much with @bewing here, tho I think 'thousands' is probably a stretch. Some are extremely large - the whole sea to the NW of KSC could be a single crater (centred on the Spain-shaped landmass), as could the entire desert region (centred on the mountain range with the pyramid location), and another near the north pole (centered on a small inland sea/very large lake).

Lakes very often form inside craters due to the natural depression and disruption of the water table they cause. Just because some of them later dry up again doesn't mean they weren't originally impact craters.

Any vaguely circular feature with a 'curved' upland making an arc around any part of it is very likely a historic impact crater.

[bewing]

Exactly. Dried up lakes don't have elevated ridges all the way around them. But if you spend some time flying jets around Kerbin, you end up crossing a whole lot of mountain ranges. And as you cross one, you say, "Those mountains are all lined up!" And you zoom out a ways and find out you are looking at a very very large, perfect circle of mountains and hills. And you look where the center would be, and often you find a rebound peak there -- or a gradually sloping pit going all the way down.

[nosirrbro]

5 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I'm pretty much with @bewing here, tho I think 'thousands' is probably a stretch. Some are extremely large - the whole sea to the NW of KSC could be a single crater (centred on the Spain-shaped landmass), as could the entire desert region (centred on the mountain range with the pyramid location), and another near the north pole (centered on a small inland sea/very large lake).

Lakes very often form inside craters due to the natural depression and disruption of the water table they cause. Just because some of them later dry up again doesn't mean they weren't originally impact craters.

Any vaguely circular feature with a 'curved' upland making an arc around any part of it is very likely a historic impact crater.

The sea is definently not a crater, it is possible that, however unlikely due to the very different elevations, that on the spain shaped peninsula there does exist a crater, however the crater if it is one ends before the ocean, so that is not a possibility. There is also a possibility of a crater in the desert region, as there is a vaguely circular mountain range with a central peak, however it is limited only to that range and is not the entire region.

3 hours ago, bewing said:

Exactly. Dried up lakes don't have elevated ridges all the way around them. But if you spend some time flying jets around Kerbin, you end up crossing a whole lot of mountain ranges. And as you cross one, you say, "Those mountains are all lined up!" And you zoom out a ways and find out you are looking at a very very large, perfect circle of mountains and hills. And you look where the center would be, and often you find a rebound peak there -- or a gradually sloping pit going all the way down.

I am not denying that there are occasional, small craters, and a few (About 4 from what I have gathered) very large ones. Despite this, the many thousands of craters you see I can bet you are generally close to eachother, and tend never to be in plains regions but near oceans or mountonous terrain or a chain of rather spiky hills. These are just random peak formations made by an algorithm that happened to take a circular shape. Some of the small anomolies are actual craters, but the vast majority of ringed hills formed independantly of impacts.

Edited May 15, 2016 by nosirrbro

[The_Rocketeer]

1 hour ago, nosirrbro said:

The sea is definently not a crater, it is possible that, however unlikely due to the very different elevations, that on the spain shaped peninsula there does exist a crater, however the crater if it is one ends before the ocean, so that is not a possibility.

On what basis are you saying this is not a crater? Have you heard of the Chicxulub Crater?

Also, the entire desert region could be two overlapping craters, with a much larger, earlier impact centred on the range nearer the ocean (north east of the Pyramids), and the Pyramid location centring a smaller, later impact.

Statistically, on Earth, things that look even a little bit like impact craters, however big and however old, are pretty likely to be impact craters.

I don't think that references to 'algorithms generating curves' are in keeping with the spirit of the thread. I'm well aware of how the surface of Kerbin was generated IRL, but what we're talking about is a hypothetical natural history based on what we see in the game, not the game's RL development process.

Edited May 15, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[nosirrbro]

4 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

On what basis are you saying this is not a crater? Have you heard of the Chicxulub Crater?

I don't think that references to 'algorithms generating curves' are in keeping with the spirit of the thread. I'm well aware of how the surface of Kerbin was generated IRL, but what we're talking about is a hypothetical natural history based on what we see in the game, not the game's RL development process.

Alright, I will refrase it as natural hill formations randomly forming circles. Circular shapes are among the easiest to form organically, and the fact they appear everywhere is no surprise.

However, that inland sea is very much just an inland sea and there is no evidence anywhere that the entire sea was formed that way. Around the central peak on the spain shaped continent is a ring of hills, so if that is an impact mark , it ends at those hills.

Edited May 15, 2016 by nosirrbro

[Matuchkin]

I believe that the water area to the southeast of the Spain-shaped landmass mentioned by @The_Rocketeer (outlined by the chain of islands), is an antipodal-disruption from the impact that formed the large, extremely obvious crater shown below.

I base my belief on the formation of the island chain around that area, and the fact that that area is nearly directly antipodal to the aforementioned crater.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Jhawk1099]

Hey I don't want to spoil anyone's fun but perhaps Kerbin doesn't have any viable geology. It was made by a team of people trying to make a space game. Geological correctness and realism probalby wasn't one of the things they were thinking about

[The_Rocketeer]

10 hours ago, nosirrbro said:

Alright, I will refrase it as natural hill formations randomly forming circles. Circular shapes are among the easiest to form organically, and the fact they appear everywhere is no surprise.

However, that inland sea is very much just an inland sea and there is no evidence anywhere that the entire sea was formed that way. Around the central peak on the spain shaped continent is a ring of hills, so if that is an impact mark , it ends at those hills.

I think you're focusing on what's nearby the centres I've identified and not seeing the wider picture. Check this imgur album and we'll see whether we're talking about the same thing or not. Also, keep in mind that weathering, plate tectonics and subsequent impacts can cause serious disruption to more ancient craters making them much harder to discern or identify.
 

 

Note these are general regions, the red dots and lines are just a quick freehand to give an impression.

 

10 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

I believe that the water area to the southeast of the Spain-shaped landmass mentioned by @The_Rocketeer (outlined by the chain of islands), is an antipodal-disruption from the impact that formed the large, extremely obvious crater shown below.

I base my belief on the formation of the island chain around that area, and the fact that that area is nearly directly antipodal to the aforementioned crater.

I like your thinking, though I think there is still an argument for the whole region to be considered a crater . I wonder how far from antipodal the centres of the two locations are? I would have guessed something between 90 and 120 degrees, which doesn't feel like enough for what you're suggesting, but... well, make a case .

10 hours ago, Jhawk1099 said:

Hey I don't want to spoil anyone's fun but perhaps Kerbin doesn't have any viable geology. It was made by a team of people trying to make a space game. Geological correctness and realism probalby wasn't one of the things they were thinking about

@Jhawk1099 you're absolutely right, but again I think that's ignoring the spirit of the thread. What we're looking for is patterns that can reasonably be suggested to represent natural historical events or underlying geology. On the face of it, the surface of the Earth has very little to go on without an underlying comprehension of plate tectonics, meteor bombardment, and weathering. I guess what I'm saying is, even if there isn't any such thing built into Kerbin, I think the surface is diverse and 'random' enough for us to choose to interpret it anyway.

It's just a different way to play the game

Edited May 15, 2016 by The_Rocketeer
Imgur album issues

[The_Rocketeer]

Also, for those who may suggest these craters are unfeasibly large, or that inner rings define crater limits, I draw your attention to this:

http://www.setterfield.org/NHCS/Impacts_and_craters/Impacts_and_craters.html

Edited May 15, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Waxing_Kibbous]

11 hours ago, Jhawk1099 said:

Hey I don't want to spoil anyone's fun but perhaps Kerbin doesn't have any viable geology. It was made by a team of people trying to make a space game. Geological correctness and realism probalby wasn't one of the things they were thinking about

I disagree, I think we are dealing with some serious science nerds here.

[Matuchkin]

4 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I like your thinking, though I think there is still an argument for the whole region to be considered a crater . I wonder how far from antipodal the centres of the two locations are? I would have guessed something between 90 and 120 degrees, which doesn't feel like enough for what you're suggesting, but... well, make a case

Ah, not  crater: an antipodal disruption.

Observe this simple example of the force of a completely vertical impact in chixchulub, getting lensed by the earth and meeting directly at the crater's antipode beside Australia.

When we look at Kerbin's craters, we should not imagine Kerbin as an object that has matter thrown from it on every occurring impact. We should think of Kerbin as a bell, or a gong, in which every applied force strongly reverberates throughout the whole object. Here's a 2d cutaway of the shockwaves:

With an angled impact, the forces shift:

One can clearly observe how the forces act like actual waves, bouncing off the inner crust.

However, those models (including the animation above) describe Earth (or Kerbin) as a perfectly flat, featureless sphere. With terrain and an elliptical shape, an impact would act like this:

So, when the Kerbin Crater event happened, there was a similar force on the other side of the planet, one that could be compared to another impact.

Now, assuming correct sizes and proportions of Kerbin (10x Kerbin), the Kerbin crater is damn huge. The Chixculub crater was at least twenty times smaller.

I'd be surprised if the whole planet of Kerbin was not reshaped by the crater. All those water basins, in fact, may be caused by the sheer reverberation of the shock-waves across Kerbin, following the impact.

 

In short- I am almost certain that the Kerbin Crater has an antipodal disruption. the "Spain-Shaped Island Chain" is a sure candidate. I believe that the Kerbin Crater may provide us with large amounts of information on Kerbin's formation. Look for the formations of mountain chains, the formations of water and terrain features, etc. I'm quite sure that the whole planet was altered by the impact, just because of how damn huge it is.

EDIT: Oh, and here's a reference picture to what I'm talking about:

Green Semicircles= Rim of Kerbin Crater.

Grey Line= Equator.

Thin Red Circle= [APPROXIMATE] area at which the antipodal disruption may be- "Spain-Shaped Landmass" chain of islands.

I would assume here that the Kerbin Crater impact was angled, for obvious reasons.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Matuchkin

[The_Rocketeer]

@Matuchkin beautiful post! I love everything about it, except the lack of a map. Could u post/add a pic with something to show the general area you're referring to as the 'antipodal disruption'? I think the 'Spain-shaped' description is a bit too vague - you're talking about an island chain, but the region I meant has no such feature! I know what you mean by antipodal disruption - when I said crater, I was defending my massive-crater theory/location, but I guess now that we're actually talking about different features. We live and learn, eh?

It might be worth making it a 'rule' of this thread that posts about new landscape features should include a screenshot or map image that locates the feature described for others to visit or consider for themselves in context, and to save confusion!

EDIT: Also, I appreciate what you mean about scaling up the Kerbin Crater, but I think we shouldn't assume that Chicxulub is the largest impact in Earth's history - for a start, it's much less than 100-million years old, and we also believe that a planetary collision was the Moon's origin, so much larger impacts much longer ago may have been very frequent. I say this in defense of some of my much larger 'craters', which may seem unfeasibly hugeous when also up-scaled.

Edited May 15, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Matuchkin]

28 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Matuchkin beautiful post! I love everything about it, except the lack of a map. Could u post/add a pic with something to show the general area you're referring to as the 'antipodal disruption'? I think the 'Spain-shaped' description is a bit too vague - you're talking about an island chain, but the region I meant has no such feature! We live and learn, eh?

It might be worth making it a 'rule' of this thread that posts about new landscape features should include a screenshot or map image that locates the feature described for others to visit or consider for themselves in context.

Green Semicircles= Rim of Kerbin Crater.

Grey Line= Equator.

Thin Red Circle= [APPROXIMATE] area at which the antipodal disruption may be- "Spain-Shaped Landmass" chain of islands.

28 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

EDIT: Also, I appreciate what you mean about scaling up the Kerbin Crater, but I think we shouldn't assume that Chicxulub is the largest impact in Earth's history - for a start, it's much less than 100-million years old, and we also believe that a planetary collision was the Moon's origin, so much larger impacts much longer ago may have been very frequent. I say this in defense of some of my much larger 'craters', which may seem unfeasibly hugeous when also up-scaled.

I never said that the Chixculub impact is the largest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_Australian_Precambrian/Cambrian_Impact_Structure

At this point, the size of the Kerbin Crater, when scaled up to realistic Earth Size, is completely feasible.

EDIT: I'm going to put my picture into my above post.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Matuchkin]

On 03/05/2016 at 5:51 AM, Rath said:

They do not appear to have ridges, but the sea is less shallow

Exactly. They're probably volcanic.

[The_Rocketeer]

@Matuchkin really nice. Since the Kerbin Crater is so uniformly circular, I wonder if the impact was actually more vertical, and the antipodal disruption is actually evidenced by the circular mountain to the east of your indicated region. What are your thoughts? This is the region I mean - it's also a bit nearer the same size as the crater:

Also, I realise you didn't say Chicxulub was the largest impact, sorry if I gave that impression, I was just trying to justify my earlier claims for the sake of the casual reader, who might otherwise dismiss them. For what it's worth, the MAPCIS object isn't thought to have been more massive than the Chicxulub object, it's just made a (an arguably) bigger crater because it impacted in the middle of a continent, rather than on a coastline.

EDIT: I also meant to say, that when you look at some of the larger 'craters' I've identified, and look at the antipodal point from their centres, you often find a corresponding surface feature of similar size and shape. I think this is quite a good theory for many of Kerbin's larger craters.

Edited May 15, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Matuchkin]

@The_Rocketeer. I'm not sure if that circular mountain pattern actually indicates the location of the antipodal disruption. Again, I'll make another reference to a chicxulub-sized vertical impact simulation, mentioning that its antipodal disruption is huge- the size of Australia.

Actually, I'll say that the circular mountain range can be the epicentre of the disruption. After all, I see that it is exactly on the opposite side of the planet (from the Kerbin Crater). I'm trying to find the area around the epicentre, that was altered by the disruption.

I would also like to bring interest to a possibly related area:

Edited May 15, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Matuchkin]

5 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I wonder if the impact was actually more vertical, and the antipodal disruption is actually evidenced by the circular mountain to the east of your indicated region.

I am also starting to suspect that. However, remember that you are not always searching for directly antipodal points.

Also, angle of impact does not affect the crater as much in hypervelocity impacts. The crater might still appear circular, but the impact may be extremely angular. Again, a great example of that is the Chicxulub crater.

[nosirrbro]

10 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I think you're focusing on what's nearby the centres I've identified and not seeing the wider picture. Check this imgur album and we'll see whether we're talking about the same thing or not. Also, keep in mind that weathering, plate tectonics and subsequent impacts can cause serious disruption to more ancient craters making them much harder to discern or identify.
 

 

Note these are general regions, the red dots and lines are just a quick freehand to give an impression.

 

I like your thinking, though I think there is still an argument for the whole region to be considered a crater . I wonder how far from antipodal the centres of the two locations are? I would have guessed something between 90 and 120 degrees, which doesn't feel like enough for what you're suggesting, but... well, make a case .

@Jhawk1099 you're absolutely right, but again I think that's ignoring the spirit of the thread. What we're looking for is patterns that can reasonably be suggested to represent natural historical events or underlying geology. On the face of it, the surface of the Earth has very little to go on without an underlying comprehension of plate tectonics, meteor bombardment, and weathering. I guess what I'm saying is, even if there isn't any such thing built into Kerbin, I think the surface is diverse and 'random' enough for us to choose to interpret it anyway.

It's just a different way to play the game

Okay, now your just drawing circles.

Spoiler

ILLUMINERTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!1!!!11!1

*que xfiles music*

Onto the subject of the antipodal disruption of the currently named Kerbin Crater (I figure we should give it something better, we dont call olympus mons mars mountain do we?), I would hazard a guess that this area is the location where it appeared, and it's not direct position and lopsidedness it a result of the fact Kerbin, like earth, is not a perfect sphere and the reverberations mostly were a bit shifted, and possibly due to a bit of an angle on the impact