Questions tagged [water-bodies]
For questions about any non-flowing body of water in general. Rivers should use the [rivers] tag.
87 questions
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How to calculate the tides for lake?
Assuming I have a lake on Earth shaped simply like an oval or circle with a consistent bottom slope and of otherwise arbitrary dimensions, how do I figure out what the resultant tidal range will be?
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What could lead a large ocean on a planet's surface to recede completely only to reappear later on in a cyclical process?
I don't just mean tides or large-scale floods and droughts but a premise where one or more large bodies of water (or even every such body if that makes it easier) disappear, only to reappear one or ...
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Is it plausible for a landmass to shatter in a tectonic/volcanic cataclysm?
In George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the land of Valyria was transformed from peninsula to archipelago by a volcanic cataclysm followed by earthquakes, tidal waves, a miasma of smoke ...
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If Titan was suddenly raised to an earth-like temperature, how long before it melts?
After terraforming Mars, humans are now attempting to terraform Saturn’s moon Titan. Having removed much of its dense atmosphere, (reducing the pressure to just 0.7 bars) the colonists have now built ...
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How much of Mars is covered if 10 quadrillion tonnes of water fall on it?
The setting:
In trying to terraform Mars quickly, I am imagining that Phobos, (the bigger of its two moons) holds ten-quadrillion tonnes of water ice beneath its stony regolith. I am further supposing ...
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Giant Freshwater vs Saltwater lakes
I am doing worldbuilding on a region centered around a gigantic lake in the sub-tropical region in the northern hemisphere of a planet. I want the lake to incredibly huge, like around 2 million square ...
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Evaporation Pans by Filling Lake Makgadikgdi with water from the Zambezi [closed]
I have Macro question, and have enquired and discussed this topic with numerous people. My background is more in Economics and Finance, but I have a small little plot in the Waterberg Limpopo (Pecan ...
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Is orangeish water possible on an alien planet with advanced life?
A planet little bigger than earth with slightly less gravity.
Colder than the earth, with longer days and shorter years. And water prevalence: 32% (23% surface water and 9% subterranean) and two moons....
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How big would the lakes presented in the two pictures presented be in square mileage?
The reason I posted two separate maps instead of just one is that in the second picture, Megalakes Chad and Congo look much bigger than on the first one. How big would each and every one of those ...
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Could a Massive Freshwater Lake and River System Exist in a Desert Environment?
In my book series, there is this lake called Lake Pheron. Lake Pheron's surface is located about 2,200 feet above sea level in a mostly flat, inland area called the Tangolian Desert. This desert is ...
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Geyser as drinkable water source in arid climate
My world is a life-bearing moon orbiting a gas giant. There will be plenty of geysers due to gravitational tectonic activity. Is it possible for geysers to happen in the middle of hot and arid biomes? ...
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What negative effects would stem from a world having many inland seas rather than large connected oceans?
My fantasy world Treyidal is a planet inhabited by two races, humans and merfolk. They live on a very seismically active world, with such things as micro-magic based earth quakes.
For the moment we'll ...
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Altantropa vs Climate Change/raising sea levels?
Atlantropa was a geoengineering project to build a series of dams across the mediterranean sea to slowly drain it creating new land, satisfying the energy requirements of europe and even merging the ...
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Could an asteroid impact permanently reduce water content on a planet?
I am building a world that used to be almost entirely covered in water but was struck by a large metallic asteroid (roughly the same mass as the one that killed off the dinosaurs) which boiled off ...
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What would the purgatorial lake be like?
The purgatorial lake in an artificial lake formed from the five rivers of heaven and hell. These rivers are:
The syrup river of heaven, a river of golden syrup
The seed river of heaven, a river of ...
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Is a lake formed and surrounded by mountains, foothills and plateaux possible?
Upon a given landmass I drew a lake, and surrounded it with small ranges of mountains and plateaux, so making it an enormous endorheic basin. The drainage from the highlands would collect upon this ...
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Can solar energy be used to desalinate seawater in Australia? [closed]
An Australian company is going to send solar energy 1, 2 to Singapore and likely to Indonesia.
Could or shall Lake Eyre basin be flooded with desalinated seawater using the solar energy harvested at ...
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What is the best strategy for someone stuck in quicksand? [closed]
So in my story a character accidentally got stuck in quicksand. The quicksand area is about as big as a small pond. My character is solo and cant call for help. What should he/she do to get out ...
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What would the weather or environment be like on a mostly-water-covered world?
I started a Minecraft world one day and decided I'd challenge myself by setting the sea level to 100, a rise of 36m from typical. Besides the fact that the tops of mountains and plateaus are still ...
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How to Cause a Hydrosphere Apocalypse Part I The Great Drought
This is part one of a two part question. Part two can be found her (How to Cause a Hydrosphere Apocalypse Part II The Great Flood)
Desert planets are a staple of science fiction. And while we have ...
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Where would rivers and lakes make sense on this continent?
Fellow world-builders, I need some guidance. I've been drawing a map of the continent Anai'vora, the landmass where my current D&D Campaign takes place. I'm very new to world building, and this is ...
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What impact would a magical curse that saps the life from plants have on bodies of water?
I have a region in my homebrew D&D setting that used to be grassland/fertile farmland, and the breadbasket of the elven empire, until some wizards did a collective magical ritual that permanently ...
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I need a possible way to flood a man-made lake located higher than sea level
I have a scenario where I need a man-made lake to overflow. It’s located higher than sea-level. There are underground streams which could be feeding it. It could have a channel to drain it into the ...
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Northern Great Lakes in an Alternate Island Africa--Would the Sahara DESERT Still be Around?
Recently, I found this map of Africa's paleolakes in the Imaginary Maps reddit:
Finding this map was mere coincidence, but this map definitely interests me. Now there have been multiple what-if, ...
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What aquatic creatures would evolve in a world with ripped apart/chaotic oceans?
In this world, a progenitor has created a mass of order out of chaos, with the possibility of entropic fluctuations increasing the further out from the center you get. What do I mean by entropic ...
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Can pumice stone be used as castle material on water?
For the same scope, another type of floating stone "on water" would be also fine.
Can that type of stone be used as castle material to float on water? Will it have a different effect if built on salt ...
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How might a landlocked lake become a complete ecosystem?
Let's assume that there is a lake that has formed from snowmelt and rainfall. The lake has never been in contact with other bodies of water. How might this lake become a complete ecosystem?
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Feasibility of large and isolated swamp-like enviroment
For my world I would need a really large swamp (or similar kind of wetland). It should be about 200km in diameter, which should be quite possible given a large enough flat terrain and enough rain.
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What would be the implications of an ocean made from blood on the world? [closed]
In my world of Ulhe rather than having saltwater between continents the oceans are filled with the blood of a god. Besides being blue the blood has similar physical properties to human blood. It is ...
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Would there still be land if the amount of water in the oceans was doubled?
A portal to another Earth in a parallel universe is open at the bottom of the Ocean and all the water is moving to the new Earth in the form of a waterfall in the middle of the Atlantic. The form of ...
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How the orbit of Earth changes if it has the double of water in the ocean? [closed]
A portal to another Earth in a parallel universe is open at the bottom of the Ocean and all the water is moving to the new Earth in the form of a waterfall in the middle of the Atlantic. The form of ...
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Lake World and Water Salinity
I have an idea for a world where land prevails over water and what waters there are are largely relegated to scattered lakes of varying sizes. Some of these lakes would be mega lakes, the size of the ...
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weather after the earth gets flooded
tl;dr : the earth has been gradually flooded, over the course of a few hundred years. Also, there are now large lumps or ice raining out of the sky (not very often), causing massive tsunamis.
I have ...
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Would a "city on a bridge" be friendlier to the environment than a more typical city on land? [closed]
The "city on a bridge" that I'm envisioning has the entire population living their entire lives on a habitable bridge or a series of such bridges over major rivers, only going on land for recreation ...
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How to put a lake on the ceiling?
Another user's answer to a recent question, specifically the way it was worded, gave me a vision I cannot shake.
Our intrepid adventurer, Joe A. Venture, is making his way through a subterranean ...
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What (and how long) would it take for all the water from a Great Flood to go away? How much would such an event shape the geography of the world?
Many worlds have an apocalyptic/cataclysmic event. If mine is a Great Flood, how long would it take for much of the world to be habitable land again? Keep in mind, by the events of the present, the ...
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How long does it take for an eclipse to cause the ocean surface to freeze?
I am working with a story. I wish to make my story somewhat logical by adding some science and thereby not making it to appear fantasy.
This story is on a fictional planet far away from Earth. Let's ...
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What sort of water sources could occur in a world tree?
I'm working on a fantasy setting that's literally a giant tree on a planetary scale. Magic is in effect, so concerns of how a tree that large could survive are irrelevant, but I need to figure out ...
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Is there dry land on Earth if the moon orbits just above its Roche limit?
Imagine an Earth-like world in all respects except that the Moon is much much closer.
I think I’m right to say if the Moon were very close that tidal forces would slowly rob it of momentum and it ...
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Effects on Earths development if 95% of the water was missing? [closed]
If a planet just like Earth formed but with 95% less water than on our world, what effect would this have on the development of the planet – in outline. Things to consider, might we still see plate ...
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What methods might an ancient civilization take to extract fresh water from great depth?
I previously asked What measures might an ancient civilization take to protect itself from extreme heat?
The answers gave some useful suggestions as to how cities could be adapted. For convenience in ...
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How deep would the ocean be if continents all eroded away?
If all of the continental crust on Earth were eroded down, smoothed out, and distributed evenly across the whole planet, filling in all of the ocean basins and displacing the water therein, how deep ...
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A planet with all of its water underground
Question: Could a planet contain all of its (vast) oceans underground?
I imagined a planet with no surface oceans - and no water cycle above ground - but where life was still possible.
My initial ...
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Living in a Giant Swamp - Construction
In my fantasy novel, I have people living in a giant swamp forest. The swamp stretches as far as the eye can see, so draining is not an option, as there is simply nowhere to drain the swamp to.
My ...
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How to create tides in a small sea?
I've done a bit of research and small bodies of water don't have significant tides, even the Mediterranean doesn't have particularly large tides.
So how can I get bigger tides on a small body of ...
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How would someone destroy a dam in a world without explosives?
I'm considering the mechanics of a "shock and awe" scene in my novel which could see an old dam being brought down. The era is equivalent to that of the middle Roman empire, so introducing explosives ...
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How might a life-sustaining planet exist with an "atmospheric ocean"?
This might be a little difficult to explain, but basically: the concept of "atmospheric ocean" is a gas that is found pretty much everywhere on the planet. Probably very dense and sinks to the surface,...
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Basin on a mountaintop plateau - how to keep the water salty?
I have recently asked a question about creating a sea on a mountaintop. I have come to realize that I would run with some problems by doing this, namely about the salinity of the lake. I want that ...
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Mountaintop sea - Characteristics regarding tides, outflow and microclimate
In an Earth-like world, with a single Moon similar to ours, there is a mountain that is 1.000 meters high.
On top of that mountain there is a crater with ca. 100 Km radius and 100 m of maximum depth. ...
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Ultimate Australian Canal
First of all, yes I'm Australian, and yes I am using a kangaroo to type this up.
If you take a look at Australia, it's a pretty sad place geographically. Very flat, very dry, mostly desert and for ...
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