Delkraneiysia (DK)/ Faults, Seismics, and Volcanics

Delkraneiysia is not always as safe as you may think, when it comes to seismics and volcanics. While rare, earthquakes do happen, and there are a few volcanos. Delkraneiysia owns its own tectonic plate.

## Tectonics

Ever wonder how mountains exist? Where do they come from? The answer lies with tectonics. The Earth's mantle is VERY hot. Several thousand degrees. The crust of the earth, which is only a few miles thick is cracked into bits. These bits called tectonic plates float on the mantle. This allows continents to move over a few inches a year. With this science, we can tell how continents move. Eventually, the plates will collide, causing a cataclysmic event, which when occurs, it pushes land upwards. This is how mountains form. Its how the Himalayas formed. The Rockies, the Alps, etc. They all formed the same way. Plates that were once not connected eventually slam with enough force that one plate moves upward the other downwards.

In Delkraneiysia's Case, we have three plates, the Delcore's Plate, Delkraneiysia Plate, ad the Morthian Plate. The Delkraneiysia plate slammed into the Morthia Plate which in turn spewed up the Finnegan Mountain Range. The Delcore's Plate (A small plate which the SW DK is located on) brushed up on the Delkraneisyia plate that only caused some small mountains. The plates have since mainly fused together, making the fault relatively inactive. However, a VERY ACTIVE fault line divides Delkraneiysia from the rest of Morthia. This fault creates a mass amount of earthquakes and there are a number of volcanos here. This is the Finnigonia Fault, which is still active, and produces many eruptions and earthquakes, and has already produced 8 earthquakes and 4 eruptions just in 2020.

## Seismics

The eastern half of Delkraneisyia is much more prone to earthquakes. Earthquakes happen when a plate rubs against another, when lava breaks through the crust. there are other reasons Im sure, but these are the major reasons. Earthquakes usually measure up to a 9 point magnitude. The higher the magnitude, the stronger the quake. Quakes shake the ground enough that structures can fall, sinkholes can form and if over water.. Tsunamis. Tsunamis and earthquakes almost always go hand in hand. Tsunamis are giant waves several feet tall that can rush into the shore causing wide flooding and damage. In America, there are both instances of Earthquake formation. In California, the San Andreas Fault runs right offshore, where the Pacific Plate and North American Plate meet. Earthquakes happen all the time here. The second instance is with the Yellowstone SuperVolcano. Lava can come close enough to the crust to crack the rock, which can cause an earthquake. The supervolcano produces earthquakes almost every day in Yellowstone.

Delkraneisyia's Seismics are calmer than North America's. Earthquakes here form between the rubbing of the Delkraneiysian and Morthian Plates. Earthquakes occur around 300 times per year on this fault line, but most of them rarely get more than rattling of the ground. Only about 50 quakes are strong enough to be felt by people, and only between 15 and 30 a year may become a major event. The Delcore's Plate fused with the Delkraneiysian Pate. Therefore, the fault is usually said to be inactive. However, it is not impossible that this fault can create a minor earthquake.

## Volcanics

Volcanics deals with the last item on this list, the Volcanos. A volcano is usually a large mountain built over time that has an active or defunct lava or magma chamber. Magma rises to the surface due to pressure. A pretty good representation is a shaken soda bottle. A full bottle of soda represents a full capacity magma chamber. shaking it decreases the pressure, and when the cap is removed, the soda will erupt from the bottle. Volcanos are the same way. Instead, natural phenomena increase and decrease the volcanos pressure. When the magma is the right capacity, the right temperature, and the pressure is right, the magma forces its way up, breaking through rocks in the crust. This is what causes the warning earthquakes. Soon later, the volcano erupts as magma makes its way through the crust to the volcano. Now there are several types of volcanos. They are pretty different. Shield Volcanos are probably the most pleasant. Eruptions are very subtle and usually never severe. The lava will mainly just ooze from the volcano. This gives it its nice uniform cone shape. The cone on one of these is very smooth and shallow compared to the others. Cinder volcanos are the exact opposite. When this thing erupts, things get explosive. The lava violently comes up along with smoke, pyroclastic flows, and ash. Eruptions can get ugly when Pyroclast and Volcanic ash lay wast to towns and cities. Pyroclasts can travel up to a hundred miles per hour destroying everything it its path. Ash and smoke can block the sun for days or even weeks, causing a "Volcanic Winter". Composite volcanos will virtually have both kinds of eruptions. They are built like Cinders, but do ooze sometimes. Sometimes, a violent eruption can change the shape of the volcano.

### The Supervolcano

The last kind of Volcano is the Supervolcano. They outmach all the volcanos in the world. The best known supervolcano is right here in the US. It's Yellowstone. Yellowstone is prized for the geysers and mud ponds. It's awesome hot springs. But when you find out what's powering all that, it can become scary. Yellowstone is just one huge 50 mile wide volcano. You cannot see it. That's because the volcano is underground. When your sanding on Yellowstone's ground, your actually in the volcano. We call it a Caldera. A caldera forms when a super-eruption renders the ground unstable after the eruption. The land will collapse and fall into the cauldron. Then in another 100k years, it will happen again. This gives it time to fill up the new cauldron. There are very few supervolcanos. But when they blow, it can be cataclysmic. Whats known as the kill zone, is were the pyroclastic flow and ash are at its most severe. Anything here will be dead and destroyed permanently. Several hundred miles away is the danger zone. Danger Zone is where effects are moderate, where its mainly ash buildup. Ash is much heavier than snow. Inches of ash can fall after an eruption. Ash can topple structues easily. Everyone else outside both zones will not be saf exatly. Sure they'll be safe from the blow, that's only one half of the eruption. Ash and smoke can be carried around the atmosphere for several months or years following a super-eruption. People and livestock would be screwed and agriculture would fail. Mass extinctions would likely occur. Luckily, There are no expected super-eruptions from Yellowstone or other known supervolcanos.

### Delkraneiysia's Volcanos.

Delkraneiysia has 57 Volcanos. Only 12 are active. The rest are defunct, and have not erupted in millions of years. Delkraneiysia has 32 volcano parks, in which you can travel and hike into the inside of a defunct magma chamber. The largest magma chamber park is the size of the city of Houston. This is the Veriano Volcano, which hasn't erupted in what archeologists think was over 3-4 million years ago. As mentioned before, there are 12 active volcanoes in DK. 8 of them are on the DK-Morthian Fault line. The another 2 are volcanic islands to DK's Southwest. These islands are fully volcanic, and are Delkraneiysia owned. These Islands known as the Ostlind Islands last erupted only back in 2011. Ash fell as far away as Delcore City, London and parts of A'Lacaicos. Ostlind island's eruptions are usually never all that severe. Its best category would be a shield volcano. Its sister island, only about 50 miles west, also a shield volcano is strictly only the oozy lava. Its eruptions happen far more frequent but less destructive. The lava spews lightly from the volcano. Lava flies about 300' in the air before falling back to the ground. The island gets bigger a little ever decade. DK lists this as a protected national park, where citizens and travelers around the world come to see. That leaves two left. There is only one cinder volcano in DK. Its located on Norlinsk Island. Norlinsk Volcano last erupted in 2017, sending pyroclast across the island. Since the island is so far out, there was no effect to the mainland. Volcanic ash could be seen falling in Ny-Norge, and smoke and ash filled the sky for 6 days. Norlinsk Volcano is not due to erupt again for several hundred years.

The last volcano is a supervolcano.

The Delcore's Supervolcano is a very large volcanic caldera just southwest of Delcore City. The scene is very similar to that of Yellowstone. It has geysers, mud pools and a large hot spring lake. The area is deemed as a national park, being one of Delkraneiysia's more popular attraction. Recently, Delcore's has been producing a lot of major earthquakes in January 2020, as well as ground swelling, which could mean at least a small eruption could be coming. Delcore's last eruption was 937k years ago, so it is overdue for another eruption. While Delcore's should be erupting soon, we don't think it'll be a super-eruption.

Delcore's Supervolcano is smaller than Yellowstone. Its probably about 3/4 to 8/10 of the size of Yellowstone. Delcore's magma chamber still is pretty huge, about the size of New York City. If a super-eruption were to come out of Delcore's It would be cataclysmic for all of Delkraneiysia, but the kill zone is only about 80 miles wide. On average, its super-eruption would be equivalent to 1,500 times larger then the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980.