rocketoink

INTRODUCTION Ingrid Valley Megacaldera Complex is a vast metropolis in the beginning... but throughout seven stages of development the valley is completely transformed into a beautiful, varied landscape. Like the Blake River Megacaldera Complex [ now already 2 billion years old ] Ingrid Valley is the remnants of three titanic volcanic eruptions, sourced from a huge underground igneous system called a supervolcano. The remnants are called calderas, or in this case due to their colossal size, megacalderas. FORMATION Megacalderas are formed when so much ejecta is erupted that the magma chamber is partly emptied. About 1 tenth of it's total capacity is removed, and the above crust falls in, creating a crater tens of miles wide, and at least a thousand feet deep. In the eruption, about 2 thirds of the superheated, pulverized ejecta immediately falls back down, totaling in volume from 700 cubic kilometers to about 2000. This is dispersed within 100 miles of the megacaldera in pyroclastic flows, boiling avalanches of volcanic gas and tephra travelling at 500 to 700 kilometers per hour. The tephra is called ignimbrite when it is laid down by pyroclastic flows, and can be over 1000 feet deep. This raises the terrain around the supervolcano, filling in small valleys and rivers. Throughout the seven stages of Ingrid Valley's formation there are three supervolcanic eruptions, each forming it's own megacaldera. Between each eruption is 800,000 years of erosion, totaling the period of erosion to nearly 2.5 million years. At the final stage an asteroid impact has occurred, drastically altering the local landscape. CONCLUSION All stages of the megacaldera complex's formation are in the zip file. It is only 1/3rd of actual size, and the full size version will be uploaded shortly. I hope you enjoy the challenges and beauty of Ingrid Valley Megacaldera Complex, as I enjoyed making it.

This is my last map, inverted style. It's quite a bit whiter now, as the colours were reversed today. Seas exploded as the ground beneath erupted upwards, and this mostly turned to snow, which blanketed the region. Meanwhile, the areas where towering columns stood over plains imploded and surged down below sea level. The water that didn't freeze as snow flowed down depressions into the imploded holes. What you see above is the final result. You players will find that, although the snow takes a long time to settle, Most of it is buildable land scattered with giant wells, not a giant stretch of sea with great big horns sticking out all over the place and the smallest amount of constructable land. I think everyone will enjoy this map better than the first version.

This is a NASA image of a 'supercluster' 300 million light years long and 10.6 billion light years away converted into a greyscale map for the Simtropolis and SC4 world. The original article is here; http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0107filament.htmll It's quite a rough map, and a challenge to build on, but there are some flat areas [ as shown ] I hope you enjoy this cosmic wonder.