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[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Hello, I was reading through your posts and couldn’t help but be inspired for a fictional material by some minerals and metals having an effect on the surroundings. If it’s not a chore, could you please provide any real world examples of how some minerals have effect on the environment. Something like affecting the structural integrity of, dyeing, or any other effects on the surrounding rock. Apologies if the question is not well worded or I’ve made an incorrect assumption, I know nothing of geology myself :)

Boy, I am so ridiculously happy you asked me that! It is one of my more favorite subjects! I will break this up into three sections, first to talk about environmental effects (this will include ideas of like mountain shapes, natural disasters, contamination of water, and even how streams look), then we will talk a bit about industry (what minerals are used for what, and how do they effect the people using them), then I will talk briefly about infrastructure before directing you to a documentary series that is old but does in fact explain all of this far better than I ever could hope to. This is kind of an extension of my economic trade and mining posts, so I will try to talk about similar but not the same topics! I feel like for the best results they should all be read together!

Environment: Some minerals that occur naturally are incredibly unstable at the surface, and when they breakdown it can really harm the environment. I am originally from Pennsylvania and a big problem in that area was something called Acid Mine Drainage, which is, in the simplest words, when sulfide minerals (in PA's case, pyrite) break down and lower the pH of the soil and water. This effectively kills most things living in the environment and can even be strong enough to cause skin irritations.

A great idea in a fictional world may be an old mining district that was abandoned and rediscovered with toxic water.

Something else that is small and thought about much less probably is something that happens when you boil water. If you pull well water (or groundwater) and boil it something that you may notice is a white ring form around your pots and pans. This is because your soil or rocks have access calcium and when you boil your water it precipitates out. This is not harmful, but it is something that will vary based off locations, and could effect ones health in a positive way (calcium is a very important nutrient).

But taking a step back from human health, lets look at large scale differences that can be effected by minerals/different types of rocks

The first thing to consider is how can a landscape look? typically when you have metamorphic(excluding schists) or intrusive igneous rocks (granite and whatnot) typically you will see doming, well-rounded mountains vs. sedimentary rocks where you might see distinct layering as some layers are more soft than others.

More mountainous locations, regardless of rock type will have more braided rivers, and places that have lower elevation change will be more meandering rivers. The bottom of the riverbed also changes! in older mountain ranges you would expect to see more metamorphic rocks exposed to the surface as the top of the mountain range has already been eroded, while fresh new mountain ranges might have a larger diversity of rocks within the river. Something I distinctly remember from going to North Carolina for the first time was seeing all the glittering mica in the creek beds there because the Appalachians are a very old mountain range.

Always remember: The rocks in the river reflect what is in the mountain!

But how can this effect how does this effect people? crystalline rocks are typically safer mountains to live in than sedimentary rock mountains, because they have very little variation and are less likely to break across planes of weakness, that said they are usually poorer in resources for older time periods other than for making things like stone for building houses and harvesting silica to make glass. There are of course exceptions to this, but for the most part this is true.

Sedimentary rocks mountains on the other hand are more dangerous in causing landslides and sinkholes, however they are usually rich in resources like clay, coal, oil, and even in some causes be rich enough in metals to be mined for iron. Chert is also a sedimentary rock that is used a lot in Native American cultures to make arrowheads, spearheads, and basic cutting tools, though this is way out of my realm of knowledge.

Industry: I have already hinted at some of these but I will try to talk purely about different things in this section! First lets talk about lead, my Roman empire is the Roman empire collapsing due to lead poisoning. Galena, a lead sulfide, is a rock formed in some sedimentary rocks and in hydrothermal environments (hot water injecting into cold rocks), hydrothermal activity can be present in past volcanic environments, during metamorphism, or even on the ocean floor. These are accessible in many locations is what I am trying to say, and lead is VERY appealing until you know it poisons you. It has a very low melting point meaning it is easy to work with, it is resistant to corroding, and it even imparts a sweet flavor and was used during the Roman empire to sweeten food without the addition of sugar or honey. Later, it was used due to its white color to make one look paler than they truly were because staying inside was a status symbol, added to glass to lower the melting point and increase the time it could be 'worked with' and the added side effect was that it made glass more shiny which then made it popular in jewelry. Lead was also used in paints, and dozens of other things, but it is time to move on.

Lets talk about paint colors that were available based on rocks! Clays and sedimentary rocks typically contained red to yellow hued pigments (think rust and earthy tones), so those colors would be seen more in art in areas dominated by sediments than say, green (unless there is a plant that can produce a strong enough pigment). Metamorphic rocks/hydrothermally altered rocks are more likely to produce colors like greens and blues and vibrant reds. What creates these colors is usually copper and mercury will create vibrant reds.

Scheele's green was a popular green that was created by an arsenic-bearing mineral that killed many people during the Victorian era.

Let's also briefly talk about how rocks could effect cosmetics! glittery eyeshadows, highlighter and other things we use today often use the mineral mica, which is a metamorphic mineral. It stands to reason that having shimmery makeup trend would be more likely in places that could supply it. Chalk could also presumably be used as a cosmetic which is a sedimentary rock, so maybe they could value matted and paler looks?

Another random thing that I have been dying to mention but couldn't think about a post it would fit in but imagine asbestos clothes that was a thing! Obviously people didn't know that it was bad for you at the time, and it seemed a miracle because it would be unaffected by fire and it was FABRIC made from ROCKS. Again, this is only found in places where asbestos is found, so like low temp metamorphic mafic/ultramafic rocks (essentially take the ocean floor and heat it up a little and BAM asbestos).

anywayyyyy, I truly truly believe the results are endless in this regard. I know very little in terms of history, so I am sure there are many others that can add to this in a very significant way.

Infrastructure: This one is probably the most obvious, but in terms of strength in building, different rock choices will be chosen. There is a reason marble is used to make pillars. Though the general rule of thumb is that massive rocks are generally more resilient to breaking, this includes sandstone for sedimentary rocks, granites/diorites/gabbros for igneous rocks, and marbles and quartzites for metamorphic rocks. Foliation or layering in a rock can also be abused like using slate for shingles and chalk boards and schist also for roofing.

The documentary that talks about most of these things: Journey to the Centre of the Earth: Art and Journey to the Centre of the Earth: Architecture. It is an older documentary series but I genuinely love Ian Stewart and all of his geology documentaries. You can also find both of these for free on YouTube I strongly recommend you find a legal version of this!

Anyway sorry for replying late my work has been piling up lately! Feel free to ask anymore questions! Also I didn't proofread this so if there is any grammar issues I am sorry.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

From one geologist to another, hi! Love your geology video game posts btw

Oh my gosh! Thank you so much, and hi! I really love writing about videogames but I feel like I haven't been playing enough of them lately to keep up with the posts but this is still so great to hear. Let us hope a great videogame comes out with some great geology!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

I saw the landslide stuff and one thing i have not seen in person, but seen videos of and in smaller cases after effects of is this one type of Clay, that normally is solid, But can kinda suddenly become liquid, taking entire landmasses with it. A barn near where i lived ended up going into the nearby lake Due to the clay being disturbed by something new getting built there, and therefor suddenly liquefying, taking the barn with it into the lake. Quick clay i believe it is called? Terrifying yet really interesting.

Quick clay is certainly a kind of clay that is notorious for causing slope failures, but clay in general a very common 'plane of weakness' that can allow for landslides to occur, and I feel like it makes sense when you think of the image of someone throwing something on the wheel, it is incredibly malleable and adding any amount of weight to it may lead to failure.

But this is a good first hand example of a disaster that can happen with seemingly no rhyme or reason!

Another good example of a natural disaster that can feel semi-random but is typically disastrous for the people experiencing it is sinkholes! If you live in an area that has a lot of limestone, sinkholes are a fairly common occurrence as the ground slowly dissolves with the rain and can lead to eventual failure!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

may i receive your rant on why every videogame ever chooses to have columnar basalt in places basalt should not be, like in unsuspecting caves or just dotting beaches with no volcano in sight... because god, that gets me going.

Let me preface this rant by saying, I love when videogames at least try, like I can look at a rock and actually say, "hey that's columnar basalt and not *generic rock texture*" (Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's texture shortened my lifespan). So generally speaking, if I can tell at least vaguely that someone googled photos of rocks when creating a game I am more happy than not, but!

My GOODNESS! I think I could extend this rant to just videogame cave systems in general! Like, caves are only formed in limestones and marbles (And some limey sandstones and salt deposits), BUT for some reason we are mining and finding Rubies? Emeralds? Metals? These caves they are depicting are clearly just supposed to be these natural caves and not abandoned mines, which would give them some leeway to put whatever desirable gemstone or ore they wanted in the game, but they don't choose that for some reason, and it is beyond me why!

And can we talk about how all of these caves got there in the first place? Like limestone only forms in marine environments! Are you telling me that the entire continent you designed was underwater to the extent to have a spiraling cave system forming at least every ten miles of trail explored (Skyrim I am looking at you)? And how acidic is your rain? Are we experiencing an industrial evolution? I CANNOT, also in what situation are these random massive quartz crystals in otherwise fine-grained material forming? Like one, Who would actually leave that laying there? No one. And two, how is this forming? Like are you trying to say this formed after the cave was created or what? If that's the case the more likely mineral would be calcite or gypsum.

My little bird brain can't wrap my head around what they are trying to do here! (The second image is from ESO and I give it a lot of lenience and to be fair they are trying to depict these are geodes that are surrounded by a massive basalt but they are also showing stalactites and stalagmites which aren't in basalts so it still gets points docked).

But yes! Seeing inaccurate geology, columnar basalts included can take you out of a game so fast, same with the imaginary ores that are kind of based off real metals. I think I would be more ok with completely fake names, because then at least I wouldn't have anything to associate it with.

That being said! I will end this rant by pointing out videogames that when either I was playing or my fiancé was playing I was pleasantly surprised by the geology/accurate textures.

ESO- elder scrolls online, I know I just docked it points above, but genuinely they do an amazing job depicting different rock types to the point that on their islands they have limestones. with. fossils. I nearly cried. Of course they still have random metal seems everywhere but it is an MMO and resources are necessary so I can ignore that as long as they keep making accurate landscapes.

Titanfall- I will just add an image because it will speak volumes

like does that shale/siltstone have ripple marks in the middle right hand side? beautiful. amazing. perfect. chief's kiss. (Apex also does a decent job which is a battle royale game that takes place after the Titanfall games, the textures aren't as good obviously but you can definitely tell what kind of rocks are at each map)

3. Horizon Zero Dawn- the graphics in this game are just genuinely impeccable and it takes place in the US but after the collapse of civilization. In a lot of ways, I think it made it a bit easier for the designers, but they still did an amazing job depicting the rocks accurately! I believe there is a Youtube video which compares the actual locations to the videogame locations.

some obviously tilted sedimentary rocks

sandstone arches

@cosmic-tuna please add more games if you know any!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Hey I was wondering if you could help me identify garnets from an old animated film?

I've no idea if the creative team used any real life reference for this (despite my knowledge of films vastly outweighing that of geology)

Hello! Thank you for asking, as I am actually going to make a post a little into the future addressing crystal-shape because I have seen this issue a lot in media. These are not garnets! Garnets have a cubic to rhombic dodecahedron crystal shape, which means that they are going to be more cute, chubby, and round!

Colors of garnet can vary depending on what elements they can substitute in their crystal structure, so the one above that I am showing is most likely almandine which is an iron aluminum garnet, which tends to have a deep red color because of the ferric (oxidized) iron, but other colors garnets can be range from green, orange, pink, and many different shapes of red. So at least the color seems accurate.

I do have one final aside from this over analysis of this image and its that garnet is typically not found as a geode like quartz, but as a porphyroblast in metamorphic rocks! This just has everything to do with the conditions necessary to form garnets (Which like high pressures and temperatures) vs quartz, which can thrive in most conditions (Its a weed essentially).

I appreciate you willing to let me stand on my soapbox and preach about garnet, as it is both my best friend and my enemy in my working life. But in all honesty, there are a lot of neat crystal shapes that exist and I just don't seem to see them enough, as everyone always has the preconceived idea that 'crystals' look like quartz crystals because they happen to be the ones that people see the most due to how common and cheap they are (Which is not their fault).

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Writing about Mines in your Fictional Universe: A Geology Introduction

Hello! I'm Bird, and I am here to guide you on a journey about different mines that exist, what materials are being mined, what those materials might be mined for, and what rocks/what processes might make these areas mineable. I will also touch briefly on the idea of gem quality, the commonness of the material, and what these things might look like fresh out of the dirt!

First things first, lets talk about the what types of things we might want to mine for in a fictional universe! There are a lot of things that are used daily that require mining, but there are a few that I see written about the most: Gold, Gemstones, Iron, and Coal. I personally would love to see this idea expanded on a bit, so lets talk about some mines that would definitely be necessary but overlooked! First one is pretty easy, glass! those beautiful stained glass windows are useless if no one is mining quartz to be made to glass, and I imagine it would be quite a profitable business seeing as glass, in general, was a luxury in ye olden times. The next thing we need to address is Abrasives! want to sand and polish stone and metal? Want to sharpen your blades for battle? May I introduce you to abrasive minerals! garnet, corundum (Ruby and Sapphire), and yes, diamond! Why are we using such beautiful gemstones to polish other things? Simple, even if you are to find a deposit of these gemstones (garnet being one of the more common ones) most of the time they are inclusion rich, ridiculously small, an undesirable color, or all three of these.

Finding gemstones that are good quality is hard, your character will not stumble upon it, pick up the rock and immediately know if the location is good enough to mine gemstones. If you are determined to make it a gemstone mine, have your character hold the mineral up to the sun/a light source and let them be able to see light coming through, though it is considerably thick.

Moving into metal mining! Metal mining is both easier and more complicated to write! Why is it complicated? Because unless it is gold or silver you are unlikely to see the desired metal itself. Why is it easy? welllll, I am going to try to make it easy. First things first, a lot of metals are chromaphores, this means that when the element is present, it will influence the color! Copper is an excellent example of this, old pennies oxidize and turn blue/teal/green, so do most rocks bearing copper! Looking for iron? It will probably stain the rocks dingy and brownish red. Things to note: copper and iron can be found in mineable amounts together! If you do this, iron will be present in the form of pyrite, or fool's gold, this has a nice cubic shape and can be described as such, the copper will typically leave a teal residue or veining across the rock, which in this case will almost exclusively be black to dark gray (Its basalt) but it can be found as the mineral chalcopyrite also (looks like fool's gold but it doesn't make cute crystals). Malachite is also a copper ore, in my experience I have never seen malachite from a mine that has looked like some of the stuff I have seen in gem shops, azurite (A darker blue mineral) can be present also, but again, these are usually very fine grained and would not be able to be used as jewelry, but obviously, in some places it must happen, just much less frequently.

Another thing I will briefly mention is that, if you are writing about metals remember that these metals will require a smelting process to extract a pure metal, this usually requires some other material (For iron, it is charcoal). Also remember alloys! Most useable metals are a mix of different metals to make them harder. This even includes gold jewelry. Last comment about metals, a very interesting plot for a fictional universe would be the use of lead. Lead ore was a hot commodity before we knew it was toxic, the side effects (Being nuts) could really create some tension.

Lastly in terms of mined material, I will briefly mention coal and stone in general just to say, coal is a sedimentary rock, distinctly different from the typical environments necessary to form most gemstones and heavy metal deposits (Yes, there are exceptions). Coal is dark black/gray, which is quite uncommon for sedimentary rocks which tend to range from reds/tans/browns/grays. When coal is lifted it will feel much lighter than you anticipate, which is the polar opposite of what happens when you lift a metal rich rock, which will feel immensely heavy. Finally, Coal will not turn into diamonds in nature, diamonds need mantle pressures and temperatures to form, there will be no diamonds under a coal mine unless there was a mantle derived eruption that got covered in a swamp, that became coal and as they dug they exposed the kimberlite pipe (I mention this because I just read this in a story and it hurt my feelings). Finally, If you want to write about a mine that is definitely necessary but want the content to be pretty low-maintenance, but profitable for whoever owns it, owning a granite/marble/ or really any desirable stone quarry would be perfect.

Now I will move onto what kind of mining exists today, I will not talk about every exclusive mine, but I will talk about ones that are common that are on my radar. First up, the one everyone talks about in books, underground mining. Underground mining is used when you are getting the material from the 'primary'/original source. The rock is rich in copper? Lets mine said rock. However, mining underground is the most dangerous form of mining, there can easily be a lack of oxygen because of insufficient ventilation (That's why people will carry something with an open flame when going into abandoned mines; if the flame goes out there is not enough oxygen and you have to turn back). There can also be lots of collapses due to overhead rocks, enough said. Cave mining is primarily done when the amount of rock above the deposit is too great to strip mine.

Now lets talk about strip mining! Strip mining is when you just mine on the surface, and dig deeper and deeper into the ground to obtain your desired resource whether it be stone, coal, gemstones, or anything else. It truly is less glamorous, but it is safer than digging a tunnel. That said it has its own issues, sure the oxygen is good, and you don't have to worry about the rocks collapsing over your head, but oh wait, the rocks can collapse over your head. Landslides can occur due to the over steepening of sides, excessive rainfall, and most importantly, old faults or planes of weakness that happen to be facing towards the mine (the diagram will help this make sense). Both of these types of mines can also create ecological damage, which can be mitigated nowadays, but then maybe not so much. Namely acid mine drainage, I will not talk much on the effects but a quick google search will give you plenty of information that might be useful for writing.

Now both of these are trying to mine a targeted rock, but sometimes its best to let nature do the work so we can do less. Diamonds, gold, corundum (rubies/sapphires), and garnets all have one thing in common. They are dense! So when erosion happens, and that sediment makes its way into a river, everything will separate based on its density. This is just because faster moving water can hold heavier sediments, and slower moving water will drop those heavy sediments leaving only the lighter sediments within the water. Lots of places that mine the things listed above will pan/sieve in active rivers and streams, or they can surface mine where rivers and streams used to be! These are called placer deposits. There is one setback though, the gemstones will not be perfect crystal shaped, they will be rounded due to being thrown around in a river (like beach glass). These are sapphires, but they have been rounded over time in the river.

Final thoughts, writing about a mine can seem nerve-racking, intimidating, or just something that you want to briefly mention and move on from, but truly I think going into the weeds could really add something to a story! Even if stories are slightly inaccurate about information, I am still 100x more excited to see it mentioned in more detail than to see it as a sentence. Besides it is fantasy, it doesn't always have to be exactly like earth.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Ohhh my gosh, thank you for your post about geologic events and tips on writing them! If you don't mind, can I ask you about cave systems? Some of the more commons types (mineral types and formations) vs some of the more spectacular/rare finds and the conditions for their formation?

Hello and thanks! Caves typically are formed out of limestone (a sedimentary rock). Limestone is a rock mostly made of calcite/ calcium carbonate that is formed in the ocean. Once the ocean level lowers or the land rises due to mountain building events, these rocks get exposed to the surface where rain (which is usually always a little bit acidic) will begin to react with the stone (Similar to your teeth and soda). Once this process begins it will make the caves we know and love.

There are a couple interesting things that can happen though! First, dissolving rocks means that the water is full of minerals, that means that while that water drips from the caves it will precipitate out those minerals creating stalactites and stalagmites on the ceilings and floors. This also means that they will be made out mostly pure calcite!

Another interesting thing is that because they were on the ocean floor, it means that there will be a lot of fossils present from an ancient ocean.

So, most times, the only things you will find in caves is calcite and fossils. However in some rare instances you can have salt caves, which are also sedimentary but would be associated with the drying of oceans (You would also be able to probably find gypsum in those caves as well).

Other rare and interesting caves could be formed from hydrothermal water (hot water generated from volcanic activities), this opens up a world of different things that *could* be present including metals being deposited in the stone (gold, silver, or copper). That said, this is just me inventing excuses for if you want it to be mineable.

Some natural disasters associated with cave systems being under the land would definitely be sinkholes! There can also be entire rivers that just disappear underground.

I truly hope this helps! If someone who knows more about caves sees this, please feel free to add comments!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Geology and the Economy/Trade in Your Fictional World: Explained

Hi, I'm Bird. I am a geology Ph.D. student and I love reading fiction and playing videogames, however something that can really pull me out of a fictional universe is a lack of understanding of basic geology, and how that would influence your fictional world. Today I will cover geology that can effect trade, some landscape features, and construction!

Things that are typically necessary/desired in a fictional world are building materials, gemstones/precious metals, and fossil fuels/ sources of energy. However, a lot of these things are not found together, and they typically have some features to make them more distinct in terms of landscape, so lets talk about it!

Gemstones/ Precious metals and landscape features

Typically, gemstones can be found in two different rock types. The first is intrusive igneous rocks (magma that slowly cooled underground to form course-grained rocks like granite) and high grade metamorphic rocks (rocks that got put under intense heat and pressure under the earth's surface). Some minerals are more likely to form in particular conditions than others, but for the most part these minerals can be found interchangeably within both of these places. *Note: this is a gross oversimplification but we are starting small

(Yes it is a shitty chart better pictures will come further in the post)

If you are writing these minerals based off and igneous deposit, good descriptions for the rocks would be speckled, with mineral grains of about the same size and varying in color. They should NOT be striated, and they will often form bald (unforested) cliffs that are typically rounded and not jagged.

If you are writing with metamorphic rocks, you would expect these rocks to be layered, typically having light and dark layers with some minerals possibly being much larger than the others surrounding it. These textures can definitely (sometimes) be observed from a distance.

*Final notes about minerals* Quartz varieties are difficult, quartz can be found in volcanic, metamorphic, sedimentary, and intrusive igneous settings. If you are writing about agate specifically it is almost always volcanic in nature.

Diamonds are found in volcanic ash deposits called kimberlites, these deposits can occur in any rock type, so while they are igneous, they can be found anywhere. They have zero connection to the surrounding rocks.

2. Fossil Fuels

If a region is producing oil or coal, it is going to be from a sedimentary environment that is very rich in ancient plant material (like millions of years old). A unique feature of these locations would be finding lots of plant fossils, and rocks that can be found in association with these would be sandstone, shale, conglomerates/breccias, and limestones. Sedimentary rocks form in layers, so if exposed the layers will be very visible from a distance. You can also get unique features due to preferential weathering (fancy way of saying some rocks are harder than others, so when exposed to the same weather some rocks will break down faster than others). Also, natural oil seeps are a thing in places where natural oil is prevalent, but I couldn't find a good picture sorry.

3. Building Resources

based on the rocks found in each region, the buildings will be made out of different materials, so lets breakdown what building materials would be used based off what rocks are present in the location.

Sedimentary rocks- lots of options here, so I will just info dump. If the region is drier, limestone is a good choice, historically may desert areas use limestone, it is soft and easy to carve, but it will dissolve slowly with rain. Sandstone is a durable rock that can be used, but it is very hard as it is made of quartz. Clay! shale breaks down in humid environments and will often make clay, this is a great, amazing building resource that could drive economy.

Metamorphic rocks- Marble.... if you want to make luxurious marble temples, metamorphic rocks are a must! Other comments, metamorphic rocks will often have layers of weaker minerals and stronger minerals, that means they will break along a defined surface. A lot of older houses in the Italian Alps (Aosta Valley) use these rocks for roofing. Slate roofing is also common in a lot of places, slate is formed from really low grade metamorphism, so this resource can be available in both sedimentary and metamorphic locations within reason.

Igneous- Granite (light) and Gabbro (dark) is very hard and therefore it is used frequently in countertops today. This is also important because these rocks will take a high shine from polishing. Igneous rocks are also perfect for making cement! Volcanic ash mixed with quicklime and salt water is the recipe for roman concrete which is arguable much better than current day concrete but otherwise doesn't offer much more benefit.

Thank you if you made it this far, I want to make more guides in the future to hopefully cover more geology topics that can influence a story (possibly natural disasters and associated landscape features for subtle foreshadowinggggg)

This guide is very simplified! It is supposed to cover a lot of information for people who may not know a lot about geology, but are interesting in creating fictional universes! If you know a lot about geology already, please avert your eyes, or comment something additional!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Nacli appreciation post

Nacli, the rock salt Pokémon, I adored him the moment I saw him, and his name made him even better. NaCl is the chemical formula for salt, which makes its name super cute!

However, this is not even the best part about Nacli, his little salt crystals are cubic! Which is the natural structure of table salt! If you wanted to prove this, you could always take a large piece of Himalayan salt that you see for sale in department stores all the time and break it. It should cleave in right angles if not produce a perfect cube!

The last super exciting thing to see in the design of this Pokémon is that the rock that is making up the round body of Nacli is actually layered! this is really neat to see because salt deposits are typically found in sedimentary rocks (more specifically, they are usually found in dried ocean beds) and sedimentary rocks are known to have layers! Here is a picture of a core that was taken from a salt mine for reference. Anyway, end appreciation post.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Diancie is Scary

Folks, today I am here to convey to you how terrifying Diancie is.

This gentle looking Pokémon has the ability to create diamonds in her hands! Diamonds! To anyone who might not have an intense geologic background or a strange hyperfixation, diamonds are made up of carbon, that, when put under intense heat and pressure, changes their crystal lattice to endure such conditions. This changed crystal lattice is what gives diamonds their diamondiness. On earth that can only happen in three major ways, the first one is in a subduction zone, where oceanic sediment is shoved into the mantle and the creation of microdiamonds can occur, the second is just in the mantle in general. What I am trying to say is that, unless you aren't in the earth's mantle, you aren't seeing diamonds. Unless that is, you are a meteor that is crashing into the earth's surface, they you have the ability to create microscopic diamonds.

Here is a graph of a diamond stability field. If you wanted to create a diamond using just pressure (this is what I am assuming Diancie is using when creating diamonds in her hand). The bare minimum amount of pressure necessary for her would be ~1.5GPA. That amount of pressure would require 489,507 feet of water over your head (on earth the deepest part of the ocean is only 35, 814 feet deep). 1.5 GPA is 15 kbars in pressure, in general (assuming homogenous lithology and a generic rock density), 15kbars is equal to about 50 kilometers into the earth. To be able to create that amount of pressure with just your hands is terrifying, and I would never let any Pokémon battle a Diancie knowing that if she grabbed it, it would simply shatter.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Shark tooth Pattern fossil

While watching FroggyCrossing’s most recent 30 day challenge using no items it came to my attention that people might not understand the shark tooth pattern that they are showing on the fossil, and while Blather’s can try to explain it, nothing really does as good of a job as just showing you the crazy extinct animal as geologists/paleontologists think it was.

Yes folks, this is helicoprion. Initially, you might look at it and say, “I am not shocked it went extinct its mouth makes no sense!” however, I would like to remind you that current existing ray/sharks that are currently alive are just as extra and ridiculous.

such as:

Sawfish

Frilled Shark

Goblin Shark

and maybe the most handsome, but the most well known, the Hammerhead 

and their less well known cousin, the bonnet head

Long story short, Sharks are old as hell, they have been on earth for 450 million years, not only is that way older than the dinosaurs, but they are also older than trees!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Zonaite Inspo

While playing through the tutorial of Tears of the Kingdom, Zonaite seems to play a pretty large role in the games mechanics, although I haven't played far enough to truly know I guess...

Anyway, while Zonaite isn't a real mineral found in the real world like the other minerals you can find in the game, in design it does seem to be inspired in part by malachite, but in practice the only minerals that could truly create energy would be uranium bearing minerals like Torbernite and Coffinite. Another thing to note is that uranium bearing minerals do tend to glow in Ultraviolet light which this ore appears to be doing, but the only light source is the Brightblooms, which brings me to my next ridiculous argument, which is that Brightblooms must emit UV light.

Malachite is a copper ore that is green and typically found in veins from hydrothermal fluid moving through a rock that is commonly mafic or dark in composition. Because it is a copper bearing ore it would not be totally out of the question to have native copper appear with it as this rock appears to have metal veins moving through it. The other minerals could also be Torbernite or some other Uranium-Bearing mineral (I just chose Torbernite because it is also a copper bearing mineral and Coffinite because it is a black uranium bearing mineral which could be the dark rock itself and it is also created in hydrothermal environments).

The game mentions that Zonaite itself has energy and it also has the ability to power machines. So, if I was trying to make this ore a real rock, I would make it a copper (conductive mineral) and Uranium (energy) bearing ore that during the smelting process is separated and then made into some crazy battery. Anywho, thank you for reading my ridiculous rant that kept me occupied from doing my actual grad research. **Disclaimer, I am a geology grad student, but I do not study uranium deposits so my knowledge about them is about as much as anyone who got a degree in general geology.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Pokemon game with different end goals

This is something that I was really hoping for while playing Pokémon violet. I want there to be three end goals for a Pokémon game one to be overall champion, one to be a gym leader where you can specialize in specific Pokémon type, or where you can become a Pokémon researcher and run a lab.

This game would have something that I feel like all over pokemon games lack and that is re-playability. Where you can play through each different questline and it ultimately feel different enough that it is enjoyable, while still allowing for the typical nuzlocks that people usually do to make the game a bit more replayable.

Personally, I am already a geologist, I am just desperately striving towards my goal of becoming like my favorite character for no reason, Dr. Steven Stone. 

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

Scarlet and Violet’s Evolution Theme

When we first laid eyes on Wiglett, we knew about the idea of convergent Pokémon, or Pokémon that evolve to look similar to others because they live similar lifestyles. 

This is not unique to Pokémon and this is something that is seen in the real world today, and prior to being able to sequence DNA and do intense morphology studies, it would cause a lot of problems for scientists! 

A notorious example of convergent evolution the dolphin, the shark, and the extinct, but similar, Ichthyosaur. Now these are all different, one is a mammal, the other a fish, and the other still is a reptile. However, if you look all of them up, they are very similar in shape.

All of this has already been talked about in a lovely post by sdrey linked here 

However there is more happening in Paldea that really leans into this idea of evolution with Cetoddle, one of my two favorites from the gen 9 Pokémon. 

Cetoddle’s pokedex entry mentions that it once lived in the water and is thought to be a close relative of Wailmer. This seems to makes since because Cetoddle is sporting a lovely vestigial tail. While Cetoddle no longer swims, it takes time for these things to disappear which allows scientists to be able to better understand how Cetoddle evolved.

All and All... I was disappointed originally when there was no addition of fossil Pokémon in gen 9, because I really enjoy how geologically accurate they are. However, they managed to cover evolutionary topics still without including them (that isn’t to say that I still don’t hope they release new fossil Pokémon in the DLCs).