Additional landmasses in the world

I'd been looking through some old threads (such as https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=165135 ) about continental drift and such, particularly how different continental developments could have been made. It turns out that the amount of lands that could have been/were is more common than you'd expect. Multiple plateaus have either been above sea or had the potential to throughout hte last 200 million years, and I wonder what kind of effect they may have if they were above sea, especially ones which don't prevent humans from existing. Some examples can be shown below:





and


Sorry if it feels like spam, but imo all or some of these extra landmasses would be pretty fascinating places to cover in a potential project, particularly if they have their own flora, fauna and even civilisations developing on them. Has anyone done any or all of these areas in speculation in the past?

A flag challenge several years ago involved creating a flag for a landmass out in the Dogger Bank of the North Sea. Here is my map and flag for that. The main effect on the history of the region was a much more intimate connection between Britain and Scandinavia, with Hirland as the stepping stone between them.

My two cents

Looks cool to me. And a pretty plausible implication. I've seen some minor ones if the whole of Doggerland stayed up, but that one you've made seems more interesting imo.

For an Atlantis sub-continent (pretty asb as its not a volcanic plataeu, though growing crust could allow it I guess), that would inevitably affect not only the gulf stream greatly, but could also provide an addiitonal stepping stone between north America and Europe in fauna and flora. If humans evolve, then they too would be affected greatly. An Atlantean civilisation has surely been done a number of times here, right?

Kerguelen alone would have a minimal impact on global currents, though it would inevitably be colonised much later than the others, probably first by Polynesians and than by the French and British. If the other ridges are there, they would have a bigger impact potentially, but offer more oppurtunities for colonisation as well as fauna.

Mascarene Plateau would effectively be a much bigger version of Mauritania, and its history may end up being similar, with Dutch having a primary initial role.

Zealandia would be like another relic of godwana, with many unique flora and fauna that are strikingly different to either elsewhere or otls. Assuming butterfly net, the British would most likely have a field day there.

While not as influential as Atlantis, Ontong, being the largest of them would have a lot of potential room for some kind of Indonesian civilisation to develop and could have a big impact on the region, though once colonialism takes place, I have no idea who might colonise.

Those are my two cents. I wouldn't mind these being implemented more in the future.

You think any of these could exist as like seperate countries/ cultures in an alternate timeline?

What about the Americans for Ontong? Or the Battle(s) of Ontong being crucial to World War II against the Japanese?

Are you aware of the Tarrantry scenarios that used to form a sizeable bit of this site's frontpage back when it had one?

(Broadly speaking, a third British Isle that is culturally a super-sized Channel Islands, starting out as a spinoff of WW2 naval fiction that needed a fictitious country I believe).

This reminds me of a fantasy Earth (Aerth) for an old RPG:

Outer World: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CyO1DbJgC5U/UaCJzoy70GI/AAAAAAAABdE/O705eQa02BU/s1600/Aerth1.png

Inner World: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BlJZxbWBxrM/UaCMwpkOmeI/AAAAAAAABdU/H8eXmRg9CXA/s1600/InnerAerth1.png (basically a mirror image inverse version of the outer world)

Terry Pratchett's "Nation" had a split Australia.



There's also a map where it's the other way around, but that doesn't show the Australias well...

The Australias aren't the focus of this book, though.

What about the Americans for Ontong? Or the Battle(s) of Ontong being crucial to World War II against the Japanese?

Click to expand...

Hmmm, if you want to have a strong butterfly net thats a possibility. Perhaps that could happen as well as or instead of the Phillipines being territory. Another option would be the Dutch of course. Or even the Japanese themselves if they got in early enough. Islands tend to be really interesting in flora and fauna and could have some very strange creatures for botanists to find there. I'm sure it would be rich in mineral resources as well which could be attractive.

Then again, Its been theorised that the Kerguelen plateau has quadruple the amount of oil that Saudi Arabia has, so if this is true, an above water version would be hot with oil companies.

Are you aware of the Tarrantry scenarios...

Click to expand...

Actually, no I am not, though they do sound interesting, so I'll have to give them a read.

This reminds me of a fantasy Earth (Aerth) for an old RPG:

Click to expand...

That seems... strange in many ways. It definitely sounds like a more ASB fantasy type thing, though a more confusing one. And btw, why did they put Lemuria in the Eastern Pacific- the whole name implies it to be around the Indian ocean near Madagascar.

Terry Pratchett's "Nation" had a split Australia.

Click to expand...

Hmmm. It's said that if the world was warmer with higher sea levels, Australia would have a large inland sea that would make it wet and tropical. I guess this is a more extreme version of that. The animals living there of course would be very different from otls (either modern or pleistocene), so a whole other biome woudl need to be taken into account.

A long series of landmasses on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge would most likely have serious repercussions as to climate. Might not butterfly the genus Homo away but Homo Sapiens? doggerland and Sunda only require an period of continental glaciation to occur. But one thing to consider. If one of the blocks of continental crust ht is currently submerged is raised above the surface then that water has to go somewhere. I would think coastlines might be drastically altered. Think a 100 meter increase in current sea levels.

A 100m rise would be ASB though- even if all the ice melted or couldn't reach that high. Besides, some in the case of Kerguelen, some could become part of an ice cap there. And we don't even know if that would happen- the sea level doesn't go up every time a new Pacific island forms after all.

The Alternate History Wikia had a really interesting worldbuilding project called Atlantic Islands. It turned into a Map Game, so mixed results.

The original map:


The islands after the rather ASB map game (with Madeira missing for unexplained reasons):

Forbiddenparadise64 said:

A 100m rise would be ASB though- even if all the ice melted or couldn't reach that high. Besides, some in the case of Kerguelen, some could become part of an ice cap there. And we don't even know if that would happen- the sea level doesn't go up every time a new Pacific island forms after all.

Click to expand...

True a 100 meter increase is most likely a little much. But take the case of Zealandia. 3.5 million square kilometers. If it is an average depth of 1km and then somehow raised to sea level that water has to go somewhere.

But I think a lot of these micro/ submerged continental land masses will be above sea kevel again. It will just have to wait for plate tectonics to bring them into a collision with another landmass as one of the oceanic plates is over ridden by a continental plate. Wait 100 my and who knows wet will happen. One thing I've never seen is any future predictions thast show what happens to these blocks ofv continental crust.

On the topic of lost landmasses, what kind of animal or plant life do you guys think such landmasses would have, assuming that they had never sunken, or in some cases had risen to begin with. Zealandia would be huge and ancient, and so have various basal mammals, sphenodontians and plants, but what about Kerguelen, Mascarene, or the ones that never rose, such as 90East, Broken Ridge, Atlantis or Ontong? The former two formed around the same time as Kerguelen, around 110-80 million years ago roughly, Ontong formed 125-119 million years ago, and Atlantis could form in say, the Miocene? What kinds of animals could they hold and how would they interact with humans once they inevitably arrive?