Eemian Interglacial / "Terra Fantasia" Map

[Ozymandias]

We are currently living in an Ice Age - more precisely, the past million years or so have had about nine 100,000 year periods (which consisted of climactic conditions akin to what probably comes to mind with the words, “Ice Age&#8221 with ca. 10,000 year long “inter-glacial” eras between them. The one we are living in now is called the Holocene, and the prior is generally called the Eemian, which should give you some clue as to why the mod is called, “Terra Fantasia.”

Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years. For whatever reason, I like “real world” maps, so I am “simply” pushing the movement of humans out of Africa back to the Eemian, which reached its maximum temperature some 125,000 years ago. Elephas of many types exist across the globe except for South America and Australia, and - for whatever unspecified reason - I have Equus equally distributed.

It was a warmer world, approximately 3◦ C warmer than today (hippopotami swam in the Themes!) with sea levels approximately 5 meters higher than the present (which, as an aside, might lead to some contemplation of current global warming, whatever the cause.)

Thread is HERE. (Previews are there as well.)

DOWNLOAD HERE.

 

[timerover51]

With respect to the Mediterranean, you have a volcano on what appears to be Corsica, and no Etna on Sicily. The volcano should be on Sicily, and no volcano on Corsica.

i am not sure if the Great Lakes would be that much bigger, as while you have the sea level being 5 meters higher, that would not effect the Great Lakes at all. The current lake level of Lakes Michigan and Huron is 580 feet above sea level.

Edit Note: Is Berlin supposed to be in the middle of Africa?

Also, the peninsula in Alaska leading out to the Aleutian Island chain is quite mountainous, also with two volcanoes on the other side of Cook Inlet from Anchorage, and then you have Katmai Volcano on the peninsula itself. Having driven down the east side of Cook Inlet, a 5 meter rise in sea level is not going to have much effect at all.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Yoda Power schooled me a long time ago on the trade-offs between playability and geographic accuracy. I had to learn the hard way which is more important in an imaginative scenario. I have to say, Ozy, looks to me like you've done an excellent job of displaying changes at a scale where one tile covers about 500 horizontal miles.

 

[timerover51]

I will not bother sending you any further ideas on your mod, Ozymandias. Blue Monkey appears to have all the answers that you need.

 

[timerover51]

Oz, would you be interested in recommendations on resource location? I was reading the diary of a whaling captain's wife who accompanied her husband on a whaling voyage in from 1859 to 1863. There is an interesting account of the ship hunting and taking right whales in the Sea of Japan, along with sighting Korean Gray Whales and Finback Whales. I am not sure how detailed you want to get with resources. The Bowhead Whales and the walrus have always been a major resource for the natives on the western and northern coasts of Alaska.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Thread is HERE. (Previews are there as well.)

Just in case someone only looks here ...

The changed polar-cap file is in the discussion thread.

 

[Ozymandias]

Just in case someone only looks here ...

The changed polar-cap file is in the discussion thread.

Thank you!

 

[Ozymandias]

Oz, would you be interested in recommendations on resource location? I was reading the diary of a whaling captain's wife who accompanied her husband on a whaling voyage in from 1859 to 1863. There is an interesting account of the ship hunting and taking right whales in the Sea of Japan, along with sighting Korean Gray Whales and Finback Whales. I am not sure how detailed you want to get with resources. The Bowhead Whales and the walrus have always been a major resource for the natives on the western and northern coasts of Alaska.

Thanks as always (I think I'd describe your knowledge base as "encyclopedic.")

Ecosystems would have been vastly different (again, some 5 degrees C warmer than now.) I'm guessing even the ocean currents would have been different, if nothing else than the (geologically) abrupt temperature changes which attended both the Eemian and Holocene (for some general - yet very scientific - notion see HERE.

Best,
Oz

 

[Blue Monkey]

Ecosystems would have been vastly different (again, some 5 degrees C warmer than now.) I'm guessing even the ocean currents would have been different, if nothing else than the (geologically) abrupt temperature changes which attended both the Eemian and Holocene (for some general - yet very scientific - notion see HERE.

Bookmarked! Always nice to find something written for the intelligent lay-person by people with substantial credentials. BU helps sponsor the site, which speaks well for the overall quality of the site.

 

[timerover51]

I will need to get out my copy of Kurten's Before the Indians, which covers Pleistocene North America from about 2 million BC forward to about 15,000 BC and get some ideas from him. There is a fair amount of data from Florida, which during the interglacials shrank a bit, but was never completely underwater as you have it, as to wild life. Also, while your sea levels would change, I am not sure how much the current patterns would have. The same would hold true for the wind patterns.

The whales I mentioned in the Sea of Japan have a very wide climate range, so probably would not have been that affected by temperature change. The California Gray Whale spends its summers in the Bering Sea and its winters in the Baja California lagoons. That probably has not changed from the Eemian to now. With the Gulf Stream and Newfoundland interaction, you are still going to have a major fishing ground on the Grand Banks.

The mineral resource locations are not going to change at all. There is a copper vein in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan running up the spine of the Keweenaw Peninsula that runs into Lake Superior that would have been more exposed during that period, where the copper is native metal, with nuggets up to 6 tons, which was mined by the Indians in the Pre-Columbian period. Some of the copper contained silver in recoverable quantities. And do not forget Bog Iron. That was a significant source of iron ore for an extended period, and is why I have Iron located in Marsh on any of the custom maps.

I guess the question would be is how much do you want to use historically accurate mineral resource locations, and how much do you want to randomize them?

 

[Ozymandias]

I will need to get out my copy of Kurten's Before the Indians, which covers Pleistocene North America from about 2 million BC forward to about 15,000 BC and get some ideas from him. There is a fair amount of data from Florida, which during the interglacials shrank a bit, but was never completely underwater as you have it, as to wild life. Also, while your sea levels would change, I am not sure how much the current patterns would have. The same would hold true for the wind patterns.

The whales I mentioned in the Sea of Japan have a very wide climate range, so probably would not have been that affected by temperature change. The California Gray Whale spends its summers in the Bering Sea and its winters in the Baja California lagoons. That probably has not changed from the Eemian to now. With the Gulf Stream and Newfoundland interaction, you are still going to have a major fishing ground on the Grand Banks.

The mineral resource locations are not going to change at all. There is a copper vein in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan running up the spine of the Keweenaw Peninsula that runs into Lake Superior that would have been more exposed during that period, where the copper is native metal, with nuggets up to 6 tons, which was mined by the Indians in the Pre-Columbian period. Some of the copper contained silver in recoverable quantities. And do not forget Bog Iron. That was a significant source of iron ore for an extended period, and is why I have Iron located in Marsh on any of the custom maps.

I guess the question would be is how much do you want to use historically accurate mineral resource locations, and how much do you want to randomize them?

Thank you on all fronts! My principal thoughts re: Resources (both type and distribution) will hopefully find some happy balance between reality & play-balance, plus there will be some of what I take be to be "the usual" muddling of categories, e.g. "Gold" representing gold, silver, and electrum (a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver found only in Anatolia.)

Also, it's possible that some pre-Ice Age set of "lost civilizations" might have mined-out resources in given area, with evidence of that, along with evidence of everything else of their existence, being slowly eradicated by the encroaching Ice

-And thank you for reminding me of the bog iron! - Especially as I have good reason to believe that a new Bogland terrain overlay might makes its first appearance in TF

Cheers,
Oz

 

[Blue Monkey]

-And thank you for reminding me of the bog iron! -

Another well exploited source of iron is meteoritic. It has a higher nickel content than iron from Earthly sources. It has been identified in pre-Iron Age artifacts covering the range from talismans to weapons, and continued in practical use up through the 19th c. For obvious reasons the source meteorites we know of landed mostly in open areas such as the steppes. Artifacts from Tibet & Greenland have been identified as well. Because of its limited distribution and source you might want to consider for one of your "mystery" resources attributed to an ancient civilization.

 

[timerover51]

Also, it's possible that some pre-Ice Age set of "lost civilizations" might have mined-out resources in given area, with evidence of that, along with evidence of everything else of their existence, being slowly eradicated by the encroaching Ice

Cheers,
Oz

I found earlier this year a very interesting paper online discussing the Copper deposits in the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula. The study covered Pre-Columbian mining by the Indians, where they basically mined out all of the easy to locate surface and near-surface deposits, and from the very large, 6 tons or more, nuggets, removed all of the surface irregularities, leaving a much smoother nugget to be mined latter with heavier equipment and iron tools. Therefore, having resources that were mined out by earlier civilizations is very possible. Besides, that last Wisconsin Glacial Period really did a job on the surface landscape. My house is located on one of its glacial moraines, part of the Mid-Continent Divide.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Food for thought:

At least according to Naga: Cultural Origins in Siam & the West Pacific, the Bronze Age likely started in SE Asia, because of the relatively close and accessible deposits of both copper and tin. Advantageous resource placement may be helpful in balancing playability of otherwise limiting starting locations.

There was a naturally occurring sustained fission reactor in Oklo, Gabon - groundwater percolating through sandstone to a layer of uranium ore in a way that concentrated the fissile materials. While that could only have happened far too early for this scenario (by an order of magnitude), it's a reminder that there's plenty of room for wholly natural weirdness in prehistory & the back of beyond. It's also an interesting example of homeostasis in natural systems.

 

[timerover51]

Greetings, Oz. Thinking of names for Civilizations and areas, have you ever read the King Jorian series by L. Sprague De Camp? Plenty of ideas in there for names.

From looking at the map, possible inhabitable areas extend both north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle. During my Army time in Alaska, I discovered home much your body is keyed to daylight and darkness. A certain portion of the military population simply cold not handle the extended periods of darkness. Cabin fever can and does kill people. The Scandinavians call ir "Mord Sick" or "Darkness Sickness". I just cannot figure out how to plug this into a game, short of making Tundra tiles set so as not to Allow Cities.

 

[Ozymandias]

Greetings, Oz. Thinking of names for Civilizations and areas, have you ever read the King Jorian series by L. Sprague De Camp? Plenty of ideas in there for names.

From looking at the map, possible inhabitable areas extend both north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle. During my Army time in Alaska, I discovered home much your body is keyed to daylight and darkness. A certain portion of the military population simply cold not handle the extended periods of darkness. Cabin fever can and does kill people. The Scandinavians call ir "Mord Sick" or "Darkness Sickness". I just cannot figure out how to plug this into a game, short of making Tundra tiles set so as not to Allow Cities.

Hello my friend, sorry for the long delay in reply but, as the ancient curse goes, "May you live in interesting times."

I've been mulling over the 6-month night issue myself. The best I think I can do is to make, as I have, the northernmost strips of land Impassable Tundra, so the absurd situation of a ship making a circumpolar trip in the same length of time as an equatorial transit.

Re: Antarctica, I've added it to my ongoing "Proto ?Release?" map/.biq; all Plains so far, but Blue Monkey has/is making a Bog terrain which shall come into play.

Given that we pretty much share a latitude, I'm delighted to learn of the phrase, "Mord Sick"

BTW, I'm about to send you a PM

Cheers,
Oz

 

[timerover51]

Oz, I was going through a book on World-Building that I am using for a science-fiction role-playing game that I am working on, and it had a short discussion on Antarctica. The book has some speculation that the only way to have an ice-free or limited-ice Antarctica is have a land mass large enough to breakup the circum-Antarctica wind pattern and currents. Without that, the wind and current pattern act as a block to the flow of warmer surface water south to replace cold surface water forced north by a barrier.