What *have* I got myself in for?

[gmtaslash]

So, er, this can pretty much 100% be blamed on ineptshieldmaid, who got me thinking. And as you all know, starting Trojie on the path of thinking seriously about fictional things usually ends up with weirdness, because I have no concept of when I am overthinking things, and I get all carried away.

What is Trojie up to this long weekend? She's trying to make a geological map of Narnia ...



Yeah, so, Lewis, like most fantasy authors, just pretty much smacked mountains and rivers wherever the hell he liked. Which is fair enough, and don't get me started on how the hell I'm supposed to do a cross section with no structural data and the certain knowledge that, canonically, there's a magical land of magma and living rubies underneath Narnia, which will play merry hell with subsurface mapping (oh, how I would *love* to get out there with a seismometer and some geophones, or some power gel, and get a seismic line or ten...). But there's not a huge number of ways to get mountains. Either they're volcanoes or they're collisional in some way. I *think* the mountains of Archenland are going to have to be volcanic, I mean, for a start, Mt Pire has three peaks and the easiest way to do that is volcanically, but as to the mountains to the west ... I have this horrible feeling that either I've got a major volcanic arc through the southwest of Narnia, or there's a FREAKING CONTINENT-CONTINENT collisional plate boundary through there, and that idea makes me rear back with a 'Whoa there, Trojie! Let's not get carried away!' I thought I had a sneaky transform fault that could have explained those eastern mountains, and the Frozen Lake marked on the map then could have been a pull-apart basin, but based on today's rereading of Prince Caspian, it appears that from one side of my map to the other couldn't possibly have taken them more than, oh, let's say ten days to walk across, which means all the pretty little mountain symbols are waaaaay out of proportion, and that my bent transform fault would have actually had to have a U bend in it. Which faults don't really do. So bang goes my fun hypothesis. I think I'm just going to have to have two seperate volcanic centres instead.

The north I'm fairly happy with; the map I have doesn't seem to have the mountainous region with Harfang and the giant's City Ruinous in it, which I'm mildly grateful for, but in the north and northwest of Narnia, in a belt including all those little lakes (but not Cauldron Pool), the Beavers' dam, etc etc, I'm pretty happy has to be limestone, and then north of that is some sandstone/other sediments, then maybe another band of limestone ... I'm thinking dipping beds of sediments of varying amounts of induration so that we can get the hilly, rocky topography described up there. The coastal section will be softer sediments, much younger. Some turbidite sequences and some alluvials, maybe a fan deposit or two from all those little rivers. It needs to be soft and young like that because the peninsula Cair Paravel is on becomes an island after only a thousand years or so. And just thinking about a setting like that makes me itch to go mollusc collecting there.

... yes, I am aware that Narnia is fictional. But still! Even fictional countries are built on rock. And rock is something I understand.

Comments

[elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com]

*jaw drop* I've been toying with exactly the same thing in Middle-earth. We are such nerds. :D (Although M-e is somewhat simpler as there are no lands of Bism down there. At least, none that we know of. Maybe Gandalf visited between skirmishes with the Balrog. :D)

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

It needs to be done. It's obvious. But as per the post I made right after this one, first I need to accurately map Narnia so that it is in accordance with the books, because it appears no-one's managed that yet. Sigh.

If you do do M-e, and you want someone to bounce ideas off, I'm always keen :D

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Here because ineptshieldmaid took one look at my map angst (HI LEWIS PLEASE TO BE MAKING SENSE NOW. *weeps* I am the crazy one who comes up with the long, complicated history, by the way) and told me to look you up.

Oooh, fascinating. My understanding more or less begins and ends at "volcanoes" (I am from Washington! We know volcanoes), but oooh, volcanoes.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

*waves* She mentioned you were having map issues. The map I have at the moment appears to be Walden Media's official issue (WTF WALDEN YOU'VE MADE THE GREAT RIVER FLOW UPHILL) and I'm very unhappy with it, to the point where I'm throwing caution, time management and Real Life to the wind and going to map the bloody place myself.

Honestly, you just can't get good help these days.

Volcanoes are SPIFFY, and I think that I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and make the Archenland mountains volcanic; if Narnia really is only ten days walk across, as it appears to be, then there's just no space for my collisional theory.

But I'll map the place first and then we'll see about the geology, I spose.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Every Narnia map in existence contradicts every other Narnia map in existence. Pure hell for a writer. *scowls* Of course, my Narnia is, like, three times the size of Lewis's, so I'm eventually going to have to map it out myself. *sigh*

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

I've decided I'm going to map based purely on what geography the characters walk over to get from A to B, and use my knowledge of landscapes to fill in the gaps. As far as I can see, it's the only way I'll get a decent base map to work from for what I *actually* wanted to do in the first place, which was make a geological map of Narnia, which was going to maybe end up with a short silly fic in which Peter, Edmund and Lilygloves the Mole decide to go on a geological expedition across Narnia. Which is a perfect illustration of my habit of taking things far too seriously and then doing something silly with the result.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

GRIN.

Did I ever tell you about wanting to make a cladogram of Star Wars aliens?

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

NO! Did you? If you did, can I pretty please see?

Does my rambling sound geologically logical to you?

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet, but I imagine I will someday! I will be sure to share.

And...I don't know Narnia that well, and I got a C in structural geo. But it sounds awesome!

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, structure was not my best subject either, but I do have a structure/geochem/sedimentologist mine geo (stupid polymaths running around making the rest of us feel inadequate) for a best buddy, and if I get stuck I'll badger him, I guess :P

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

God, what a NERD!

Listen, you nerd: can I ask you questions at some point for the geological maps of the planets I build? Because I am a little shaky on that myself, but I do feel that even a fictional world needs a solid foundation.

(So how DO plate tectonics work in a flat world?)

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Yes, consider me your nerd on call for geology and biology.

And ... if Narnia is really flat then I guess that the edges just work like subduction zones. But mostly I'm just assuming that it really is round and the Narnians just haven't worked it out yet :P

[lady-rilwen.livejournal.com]

Aslan did it. XD

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

He may have done, but I choose to believe that even Aslan is bound by Steno's Three Laws :P