I think not personally, because I'm not convienced hes anything but. It does him just as much justice a fake God deserves to me.

Edit: To clarify, I know and understand that he is indeed a God now and is warped beyond belief when those crazy munky followers did their selctive hokie pokie on the tower, however I'm not convienced he was a God before Alessia made him up.

That only makes sense if each region is a continent. Which, given they form a single land mass, and can each be walked across in a few days... probably not.

Besides, a fair bit of the volcanic activity (at least in Morrowind) has nothing to do with conventional sources of lava, which would tend to mess up any efforts at plate techtonics.

A great many things don't make sense in TES, beauty is it doesn't have to sit in line with our world because Nirns orgions and laws are nothing like our.

What? It takes more than 10 days to cross the pre-warp Kingdom of Daggerfall... much less the entirety of the province. The structure of the mountains dividing the provinces implies the regions follow tectonic plates.


Not true. They are remarkably similar, even with creation myths and the nature of the divine.

I'd really like to see some science involded in the TES, like how the world works and all. However, we have nothing to really go on but comparisons to our world. One in which may or may not be anything like Nirn.

I guess a better response would be how so?

Could be a hotspot... The only thing I don't agree with, in terms of Skyrim geology is the idea that it might be a subduction boundary like the aforementioned "ring of fire"

I say this, because the mountains in mid-skyrim seem rather stable. I say this, because along a convergent boundary like what is mentioned, we would need a line of volcanoes. Outside of the caldera we have in the area south of Windhelm, I haven't seen any volcanoes. The area out by the rift seems to be the only region with some sort of active volcanic event.

Maybe there is some sort of large system centered somewhere under those swamps that were in western Vvardenfell, that supplied both Red Mountain, and whatever caldera is supplying the area under our hypothetical caldera.

Another idea, would be that perhaps skyrim is part of some sort of intercontinent collision, like India and the Himalayas. I say this, because if that is the case, the fracture system that would have been caused by the collision, could have continued on to the extent that it caused some sort of migrations of magma between whatever magma plume/subterranean feature is/was supplying Red Mountain. This would make the flows near the rift region more like Fissure eruptions... but I would find that more likely considering the lateral extent.

Whatever it is... we need some sort of activity to explain the rift. That area is incredibly fertile and somewhat out of place.

I bet it will erupt on December 21 2012!!

Hmmm...are the moutains between Skyrim and Morrowind high enough to be comparable to the Himalayas? And is there volcanic activity associated with the Indian subcontinent's collision with Asia, anyway?

There is, but not as much as say a Subduction zone. It's two bits of Continental crust colliding, just like Africa and the Eurasian plate. These sorts of Collisions cause uplift, Mountain building.

Volcanoes generally form when a plate descends underneath a another plate, or there is a divergent plate boundary. The first case is a subduction zone. All one has to do is outline the Pacific Ring of Fire, then look at the Plate boundaries the majority of Volcanoes form on, which is predominantly subduction zones.

The Second case is a Rift valley. Where two plates separate. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the East Pacific Ridge are examples of this, as well as the East African Rift Valley.

The Bonestrewn crest volcano could be on a subduction zone, but the evidence does not support that conclusion as of yet. It's far to large of a caldera to be that. It could also be a Rift Valley, but at the same time, Rift Valleys follow the plate boundry. We don't see that at Bonestrewn Crest. It's a single crater in the earth, most certainly not a valley.



Someone does not know how Faulting works. Look no further then the Great Basin in the American West. In this region, you have mountains followed by Valleys followed by Mountains, followed by Valleys. It goes on like that for hundreds of miles. This is caused by many numerous faults in the area. http://explanet.info/images/Ch08/08_12a.jpg. This was caused by the North American continent splitting apart along the area of the Mississippi river. This is also the location of one of most dangerous faults in North America, the New Madrid fault. Back in the Cretaceous, this area was actually an inland sea that linked the Hudson bay to the Gulf of Mexico. The faulting here actually split the continent for a while.

There can be faults, but no Plate boundary to explain them.


Very Well could be, that is, after all, what Yellowstone is, a Hot spot smack dab in the middle of the US.

It will erupt if Todd says it will erupt.

That would make for a neat expansion

The road from Riften to Whindelm is broken in many parts due to bradyseism. That's a sure sign of the presence of a caldera under the region.

Something similar happen in south Italy in a Volcanic Region called Campi Flegrei. From one year to the next the terrain (and the shore line) can go up or or down even for meters. It's like the caldera is "breathing". Last time the main caldera erupted violently (39000 years ago) it's though it contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthal man that inhabited south Europe.

Many Volcanoes do this actually. Yellowstone is known for doing this and freaking geologists out. It was attributed to the unleveling of Yellowstone Lake, where one side of the lake was completely flooded, and the other side, there was a new hill.

It's most noticeable on Super Volcanoes, as it's on a larger scale.

The Red Mountain is the largest volcano in Tamriel. The loading screens tell us this

On a site note: Best Forum Topic Ever.

Therefore the Rift cannot be a volcano, because it would be a bigger volcano?

Why thank you, I appreciate it. My topic on Bungie's Flood Forum died after 34 replies.

Why is this thread not stickied, it is awesome. I have never seen a mixture of Geology and Lore brought together in such a spectaculor way. Keep it up guys.

The closest thing Tamriel has to scientists are mages, and considering that this Eastmarch danger zone is in Skyrim, no mage will ever be able to actually study it because of the Nords. They already hate Mages because of The Great Collapse. If a dozen mages had evidence that Eastmarch was a Volcano, Nords would either call them liars or blame them for creating it.

I don't quite think it's that bad. There's some anti-magic prejudice, which is actually fairly realistic - this business of magic being so common that your everyday merchant is selling enchanted items is a bit overkill - but I don't know that everybody would completely refuse to believe mages saying Eastern Skyrim held a huge, flat volcano.

And are the hot springs in Eastmarch or the Rift? I can't remember where the border lies.

Why thank you again.



Never thought of that. Maybe there needs to be a slight venting to get their attention.

Fixed that for you. It may be the Rift is going to prove otherwise. That, or Red Mountain is largest in terms of height.

Exactly.

The Rift volcano isn't anywhere near the size of the Red Mountain volcano in the area it covers either.

Red Mountain is just the tip of a massive volcanic region that encompasses the whole of Vvardenfell. There's evidence of severe volcanic activity throughout that region and beyond. The forces at work beneath Vvardenfell are unparalleled, the Inland Sea in which Vvardenfell lies is actually a massive impact crater which indicates that the planet's crust is severely compromised in that region.

But yes, the Rift Volcano is a supervolcano much like Yellowstone. And it will give a massive eruption when it blows, because of the fact that the volcano has no (evident) way of dissipating volcanic pressure.