[CoC/geology] It's not a crater. It's not volcanic. What is it?

Welcome to the Richat Structure. Located in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania, it's easily visible from space because it is nearly 50 kilometers across. Once thought to be an impact crater, the Richat Structure's flat middle and lack of shock-altered rock indicates otherwise. The possibility that the Richat Structure was formed by a volcanic eruption also seems improbable because of the lack of a dome of igneous or volcanic rock. Rather, the layered sedimentary rock of the Richat structure is now thought by many to have been caused by uplifted rock sculpted by erosion. The above image was captured last year by the orbiting Landsat 7 satellite. Why the Richat Structure is nearly circular remains a mystery.

If people can't craft an amazing Call of Cthulhu or d20 Modern adventure out of this, I'll eat my hat.

I grabbed this from one of my favorite sites, NASA's Picture of the day. In addition, this link shown an amazing variety of photos from the Space Shuttle that scream "adventure idea" and make nifty handouts.

Whatcha think? Got any adventure hooks from this? Let's brainstorm!

How about, it's a map of the known universe (2-D, granted), with all sorts of unusual planets/stars where they don't belong. Didn't know Earth had a mirror planet, did you??

Or, this picture represents all that is left after Cthulhu ate all those baked beans at the Elder Gods picnic.

I can think of serveral interesting modern senerios, but the best thing is this pic make a great map for something I've been looking for for a long time... The site of the death of a god.

Perhaps this is a good demonstration of why casual use of Call Azathoth is to be discouraged.

See those bluish "tendrils" around the border of the structure?

It is actually growing... gathering up the material of this world and melding it into its own chaotic form. This could be to the mineral world what shub-niggurath is to the "animal & protoplasm" world.

Geologists investigating the feature start going missing, out by the fringes. After they go missing, the fringes in their area have extended further.

Also notice that the "tendrils" have a fractal-like outline. Strange that. The infinite recursive beauty that threatens to draw us into another world...

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I love the idea of something growing, so slowly as to be imperceptible without time-lapse photography, but inexorably.

Cheers

Or, this picture represents all that is left after Cthulhu ate all those baked beans at the Elder Gods picnic.

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Or maybe this is what it what came OUT of Cthulhu after he ate all those baked beans at the Elder Gods picnic!

No, man... can't you see it? It's an Eye!

ninthcouncil said:

Perhaps this is a good demonstration of why casual use of Call Azathoth is to be discouraged.

__________________
Graham

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
- last words of Pancho Villa

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You know... the humerous thing about your .sig is that one of my brother's best CofC characters was a mexican dude who he named Pancho Villa who used to wear a big sombrero and poncho and drive a bicycle here is a bird's eye view of him on his bicycle:

-O-


-Will

Here's another image:

Click here - incredibly cool 268K image. Link added by Piratecat.

With this coloration, it suddenly looks like a formation on Mars. What in the world could explain the parallel growth of two identical geological (and not completely explainable) features on Mars and the earth at the same time?

It's a crop circle for rock eaters!