Checking the Geology of a Map

[ColinChapman]

I'm putting together a little hex map of the tip of the SE corner of a continent in my game world, but I'm no geologist (like, at all), so wondered if folks can spot any obvious problems with it so far? It's a WIP, so it's being worked on, and as each hex is a six-mile hex, it (obviously) lacks details (I'll be adding rivers soon, both from glacial mountain runoff and estuaries). Climate-wise, I'm aiming for warm temperate. The settlements in the mountains are due to them being used as sanctuaries during a recent apocalypse. I have yet to add villages and other landmarks.

I.11 is a shallow lake that transitions into marshland, then into brackish swampland as it makes its way towards the sea, but I don't know if that's possible, if it should transition from lake to swamp to marsh, to sea, or whatever.

D.3 is a plateau with a ruin atop it. Is this even a possible location for it geographically?

 

[Omand]

I would recommend stopping where you are at right now before you go further.

I am not a master mapper, but I have learned a few things over the years. For this type of map you want to go in the following order for features:

• High terrain (mountains, hills, plateaus, etc.)
• Rivers and Lakes (as these need to flow away from high terrain to be believable)
• Swamps/Marshes (around where water would pool beyond the official water sources)
• Forests and Fields
• Structures (cities, towns, ruins, etc.)

Hope that helps.

Cheers

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I concur with the question about rivers and lakes. For example, where does the water in the I5, J5 and J6 lake comes from? That's a lot of water. If it comes from rivers descending down the mountain, why isn't the river continuing and forming a lake? There are lakes without exutory rivers (where the evaporation removes the water at the rates it arrives in, like Lake Eyre in Australia, the Great Salt Lake in the US or the Aral Sea, but they tend to be saltwater (evaporation leaves the salt to accumulate) and shallow (the Great Salt Lake is 10 meters deep, the Aral Sea has other problems but an average depth of 8 meters...) and they are far from common and might require climate that doesn't fit with the rest of your map.

 

[TiQuinn]

Your map looks fine - just needs rivers coming from the mountains down thru the lake and connecting to your marsh as it flow out to sea. Have it pass by the town in K8.

 

[Dross]

You might also need to consider wind direction and what if anything it is carrying. Waterlogged air hitting a mountain will drop rain as it slows, with the other side not receiving any water at all.

 

[ColinChapman]

I would recommend stopping where you are at right now before you go further.

I am not a master mapper, but I have learned a few things over the years. For this type of map you want to go in the following order for features:

• High terrain (mountains, hills, plateaus, etc.)
• Rivers and Lakes (as these need to flow away from high terrain to be believable)
• Swamps/Marshes (around where water would pool beyond the official water sources)
• Forests and Fields
• Structures (cities, towns, ruins, etc.)

Hope that helps.

Cheers

I was going to add rivers from the M. mountains, running down (and through the foothills) to form the large, deep lake. Then add a river running south from the lake (joined by several smaller rivers from the mountains it runs parallel to as it descends to the south), entering the shallow lake and marshland/swamp area before finally entering the sea. Does that work?

 

[ColinChapman]

Your map looks fine - just needs rivers coming from the mountains down thru the lake and connecting to your marsh as it flow out to sea. Have it pass by the town in K8.

That's exactly what I was aiming to do, but I need to ensure it makes sense geography-wise.

 

[ColinChapman]

You might also need to consider wind direction and what if anything it is carrying. Waterlogged air hitting a mountain will drop rain as it slows, with the other side not receiving any water at all.

I envisioned the wind predominantly blowing west to east, because I think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) if it was blowing east to west, the land to the west of the mountains would be significantly more arid.

 

[Omand]

I was going to add rivers from the M. mountains, running down to form the large, deep lake, then a smaller river running from the lake (joined by several smaller rivers from the mountains it runs parallel to as it descends to the south), entering the shallow lake and marshland/swamp area. Does that work?

Maybe?

Sorry, but when it comes to maps I am a visual guy, so I need to see it to be sure. When I make maps usually there are multiple versions before I settle on something as I experiment with what works (and looks good).

Your description sounds generally OK, but if we look at the real world you have the order of the lakes wrong. Small streams go to small lakes into medium rivers and then large lakes into large rivers into the ocean. So, the question would be why does a large lake drain into a smaller one? How does that smaller one not overflow when there is so much water to flow into it?

Part of your answer is all of the marshy ground, but marshy ground is usually found at the inflow of a river into a lake, not the outflow. Not to say it never happens, but marshes at the entry to a lake is common because there is an elevation change that is allowing the water to pool, rather than continuing to run in a river. When a river leaves a lake, it is generally not marshy because again there is a change in elevation that is causing the water to flow down to the next level closest to the sea (or perhaps even to the sea).

Basically, water is always seeking equilibrium, which is generally "sea level" however that is determined.

Hope that helps more.

Cheers

 

[TiQuinn]

Why I don’t sweat getting every detail of maps “right”:

Game Designer Points Out Map Of New Orleans Does Not Make Sense And We Can’t Unsee It Now

James L. Sutter is a 34-year-old game designer and author, and last week he took to Twitter to share his hilarious critique on the real map of New Orleans.

www.demilked.com