Back to the Future: Trampoli Edition

There are a few different landscapes found in Trampoli. The first one we will explore is the Karst landscape found in the caves of Whale Island.

The Whale's back is an allogenic valley, this means that there is soil and vegetation on the surface, but underneath the landscape there may be limestone caverns. Below are pictures of part of the land above the caves:

                                             Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

The little pond shown in the picture on the bottom may be a small doline, or sink hole that feeds the incoming water into the caverns.

Below this surface are limestone caverns. There is some debate about how they are formed. One theory is that the carbonic acid in the groundwater dissolves the limestone. Over time the water table is lowered, leaving the caverns in its wake. Here is a link to an animation that shows this process. Below some photos of some small stalagmites found in the cavern on Whale Island:

                                         Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

These stalagmites are caused by water with calcium carbonate dripping from the ceiling of the caverns and solidifying. 

Trampoil also has a small fluvial system. The stream that runs through the middle of the town is a perennial stream, which flows all year round. As shown in the map of Trampoli below, the first half of the river is following a straight path that the people of the town constructed for it.About half way to the ocean; however, it starts to become a meandering stream.

                                Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

This stream at the moment only has one large point bar, but the Reguna's farm is on a small one. The picture below shows what this point bar looks like. The other side of the stream, where the cut bank is also partly in the picture.

                                  Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

This picture also shows a small knickpoint, and the bottom of a larger one a little higher up that has a small basin.

Since Trampoli is on a coast, the ocean also helps to form the landscape. The picture below shows a few details of a coastal landscape. The small spilling breakers indicate that the ocean floor is very flat. There is also what looks to be a broken jetty, or perhaps a few small sea stacks. Going from the spilling breaker near the top of the photo, it looks like the long shore drift is traveling towards our main character.

 Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

Trampoli in 10, 100, and 1,000 years:


In ten years, not many things in the Trampoli landscape will change. Due to the long shore drift described above, the beach may move a bit south, be taken away completely, or recede a few feet.

If the bottom half stream is allowed to meander naturally by taking out the house in the middle, then a goose-neck will start o form. The below photo shows predicted stream paths in ten years, one hundred years, and one thousand years.

 Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

In 10 years (shown in red), two large goose-necks will form. Towards the right, after the stream splits the small goose-neck will be cut off and form a small oxbow lake. In 100 years, the two larger goose-necks will  be cut-off and made into oxbow lakes. The part of the stream to the right will also be cut off. In time, the knickpoints in the stream will recede due to wear of the water. Some others will also form.

In about 100 years, the platform in the picture below will form a wave-cut notch from the waves in the lake crashing against it. In 1,000 years, it is possible that the tip of the platform (underneath the wave-cut notch) will grow weak from the wearing down and break off.

 Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                               Pictures taken by: Tiffany Dubois

The different levels of the wave cut terraces in the photo below indicate where the shore line has been in the past. In 1,000 years it is possible that the shore lowers again by a few feet, a "new" wave cut terrace will come to the surface.

Weather You Like it or Not

I would like to start off by talking a little about Whale Island (pictured in the background). This island magically floats high above the town of Trampoli, in the Stratosphere. I have always wondered why when it is raining or snowing on the ground it is still sunny on Whale Island. This is because Whale Island is above the clouds, for this reason, there is no weather in the Stratosphere. This knowledge; however, brings up a new question: How does Reguna (the main character) breathe and survive on the island? And moreover, how can he grow crops up there?

 In a non-magical world, this would be hindered by the ozone layer. Ozone is what protects us from the sun's harmful rays, and is abundant in the Stratosphere. It is made by ultraviolet rays (from solar radiation) hitting an oxygen molecule, separating the two atoms. The atoms then find an in-tact oxygen molecule to attach itself to, therefore creating an ozone molecule. The diagram below explains this:

Photo credit: http://clasfaculty.ucdenver.edu/callen/1202/Climate/RadiationBal/img013.gif

An abundance of ozone in the Troposphere can damage lung tissue and plants, the amount of ozone in the Stratosphere would make it physically impossible to breath and grow crops. If the ozone does not get him, the radiation from the sun most defiantly would.

In the Harvest Moon games (the series of games Rune Factory is based off of) there are four very distinct seasons. Snow is on the ground consistently from the first until the last day of winter. Rune Factory is a little different in this aspect, the snow appears on the last day of fall. This is later explained by Whale Island blocking the sun from the town to adsorb its rays on the day that it is the strongest. This information is scientifically incorrect. Snow is simply formed by water droplets falling through the cloud, then being lifted back up multiple times to the point where it is frozen and becomes too heavy to be lifted by the updraft anymore and falls to the ground.. It in fact has nothing to do with a giant island shaped like a while blocking the sun.

Speaking of which, Trampoli is host to a few different types of clouds. The image below shows a stable air mass with cumulonimbus clouds that are dissipating due to the loss of moisture from the rainfall. In the image, you can also see a very clear dew point, which is where the relative humidity in the air is 100% and participation can begin.

                                                         Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

This next image shows an unstable air mass. This is clearly seen by the vertical formation of the fair weather cumulus clouds. 

                                                         Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

The Hydrology and Soil of Trampoli

Trampoli is a small farming community located on the coast of an unknown, larger land. Because farming is so important to the villagers of Trampoli, it is also important to understand how the water and soil work in the town as well. For instance, one would want the ground to be both permeable and porous so it can store plenty of water for the plants.

The hydraulic, or water, cycle as a whole is fairly self-explanatory. Water falls down to the earth through precipitation, such as rain or snow, runs down as discharge into a reservoir such as lakes, rivers, and oceans, and through evaporation, collects again in the sky as clouds. The figure below is a good visual representation of this cycle:

                                            Image credit: http://www.solarnavigator.net/images/the_water_cycle.JPG
There are a few different types of water, gravitational, hygrosophic, and capillary. Capillary water is what plants (such as the one in the figure below) use to collect nutrients they need. This happens by the water moving up from pore space to pore space, in this case, against gravity.

                                Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

There are many aquiclude wells in Trampoli. This means that the water comes up to the surface from the water table through its own pressure, and does not have to be pumped. The residents of this small town use these wells to water their crops, cooking, and bathing. What they are most likely unaware of, however is that if they use more water that is replaced by participation, the ground will lower and fill in the area where the water used to be held.. The wells will then dry up, and they will no longer be able to be filled. If this happens, the residents of Trampoli will have to gather their water from the lake resting near the top of a mountain, or the ocean.

The figure below shows one of Trampoli's aquiclude wells. This one is used by the main character, Reguna to water his crops.

                                 Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

Soil is another important factor in farming. For example, if the soil is too hard or dry, or if it does not have enough nutrients than no, or very few crops will grow. A farming community needs a very lucrative soil to produce its main source of income. Following the graph below, and assuming that Trampoli has a climate similar to North Eastern United States since it has four very distinct seasons that vary dramatically in temperature, and it is near the coast, the process of the soil in Trampoli is somewhere between Poderization and Calification.

                                          Image credit: http://clasfaculty.ucdenver.edu/callen/1202/Soils/SoilFormingRegimes.jpg

Also, looking at the soil profile below, there is a layer of soil that could be considered an ash-gray (at least if it was real). This color is from silica which is caused by a process called illuviation. This is a characteristic of soil formed by Podzolizatoin.

                              Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

The Lava Ruins

Today we are going to explore the Lava Ruins located inside of the mountain in Trampoli.

Just past the entrance to the ruins is a circular lake pictured below. Upon closer investigation, it is quite possible that this lake is a caldera.

As you can see in the background, there are a few other "mountains"(as they are called in the game), insinuating that this is not just one single volcano, but part of a small volcanic arc, possibly caused by subduction, much like the Cascade Volcanoes. However, since its shape is never clearly seen, it is not clear exactly what type of volcano it is, but concerning the fact that it is either not active at all, or active very little, it is safe to say that it is a type of mafic volcano.

Adventuring inside of the ruins, one explores the innards of an in-active volcano. The fact that amount of magma increases as one travels farther down into the ruins is caused by the fact that one is venturing closer and closer to the magma chamber.

This is from the first, and highest floor in the ruins:

Just two floors below, the magma increases dramatically:

All images in this entry were taken by my from the game:  Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

Introduction

Hello all! My name is Tiffany Dubois, I am a psych major (BA) and in my last semester at UCD (YAY!!!). I have absolutely no idea what I want to do after I graduate, but I cannot wait to see where my life takes me! :)

For my blog, I decided to write about the land in Rune Factory Frontier for the Wii. The main part of this land is called Trampoli, but there are dungeons (which are called runes in the game) and even a floating island in the shape of a while (aptly named Wale Island).

                            Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo
                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

 I chose to write on this because although I have spent more hours in this game than I care to admit, I still find myself in awe of the landscape. I thought it would be interesting to look at it with a geographer's point of view. I am also very curious to see how realistic (or not) the geography of this fantasy world is.