Cumaean???

Pedro Pereira · 16 Dec 2007, 11:02 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: domus_artemis at hotmail.com (Pedro Pereira)
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:02:00 +0200
Subject: (urth) Cumaean???
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> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 17:28:45 +0000> To: urth at lists.urth.net> From: matthew at calmeilles.co.uk> Subject: Re: (urth) Cumaean???> > At 22:44 14/12/2007, you wrote:> >I'm guessing Dan'l is referring to the scene where Severian, IIRC,> >describes climbing a sheer cliff with strata after strata of human> >artifacts exposed by erosion. How would a geologist account for that?> > > And the miners of the village of Saltus mine artifacst and detrius of > habitation rather than minerals.> > This could be from tels - mounds grown up from long habitation. But > the impression is given that this is the common condition across Urth > which would be some feat.

Well, this another case where some "artistic freedom" has been taken by Wolfe. But again, it's not totally unconcievable that a city or a sucession of cities could lead to relatively intact chambers and passages underground. There are various examples in archaeology of old tunnels, rooms, etc, buried underground but explorable (when you find them) eg in Alexandria, Rome, etc. But this rare and depends on a lot of variables. Anyway, its not impossible.

 > Those however are still not on a geological scale. One thing that > does suggest those sorts of times. The mountains that have since > Typhon's prototype all been carved into the likenesses of Urth's > autarchs. When Severian comes across uncarved mountains we might > think that the carvers didn't reach that far. But _he_ thinks that > they have been thrust up since the old mountains were carved. And > this is close to where he decends that cliff of artifacts - I think > the reader is supposed to believe that geological ages have passed.> > Pedro Pereira writes> >South America seems to be basically the same as now> > Except that the main drainage is not West to East but North to South?> 

I don't see any reason for the continent to spun 90 degrees according to present tectonics. Not only that but it would not work in 1 million years. 
A much better explanation is simply that surface geologic conditions changed and lead to consequent changes in physical geography. That can perfectly encompass changes in rivers directions, flora, etc. Its perfectly feasable to see significant changes like the ones described during a perdiod of 100.000-1 million years.

> If the continent has spun 90 degrees might we be allowed a few new > mountians in the process?

Depends on the "contact zones". Orogeny depends on colision of plaques, including continent-continent contact or continent-marine plaque contact (in this last case you need a subduction zone, which is the case in the west coast of South America and the reason those cordilleras are there). A rotation of 90 degrees of S.A. continent strikes me as just a fancy with no basis on anything we know about tectonics at the moment. And 1 million years is not enough for such a major shift. But plaque movement doesn't work like that.

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