Worldwide Land Shape Similarities: Accident, Artefact... Or Art?

[Ermintruder]

Ok, I've mislaid my actual notes for this...submitted proposition-cum-observation, so I should wait. But I've got masses and masses of unformed Fortean threads and thoughts that I've not yet shared: and may yet never so do.

So: dammit, here goes.

I've briefly mentioned previously on this forum that I've always puzzled over *exactly* why it is that so much of the depicted land masses on a classic world transverse mercator map of the world seem to be so similar to each-other.....

No....I don't just mean the tectonic plate tessellation of the drift-seperated east coast of North/South America, with the west coast edge of Africa.

Nor that to a close approximation the impression that South America and Africa are so continentally-convergent in overall shape as to almost (subjectively) be near cartographic cousins.

I'll go so far as to say that the fundamental wedge-shaped broad north, tapering south, and western edge promentary are jumping out at me from all over the global map.

How can this be???? I'd love it to be somehow down to supernatural reasons.....but it's probably caused by confirmation bias, subjective selectivity and other such boring reasons.

In your own time: go ahead and call me a fool...but....what is going on? Mapping artefacts...? Map projection type...? It's difficult to unsee once seen (although that is probably just a simulacrum--style effect....or is it?)

 

[EnolaGaia]

Some general comments ...

RE: Map Depictions

Any cylindrical (3D to 2D-capable) map projection is going to distort the imagery. This has a bearing on the relative degree of "shaping" each object suffers when translated into a given projection, of which there are all too many.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection

Owing to the distribution of land masses (mostly in the northern hemisphere) the most northerly land masses are vertically "blunted" at the top of the map under this projection. This obscures the extent to which there are discernible northward protuberances, too.

In addition, there are places where one could just as readily attribute horizontal extensions / protuberances (i.e., eastward ones) just as you've highlighted westward ones.

RE: Consistency Across Time

Perhaps the bigger question would be: Have the features' commonalities you've highlighted been evident throughout geological history?

RE: Planetary Motion

Crudely put, the planet rotates west-to-east around a north-south axis. Do physical effects of this motion contribute to promoting / hindering the formation and / or persistence of such shapes?

RE: Dry Land - Is It Representative?

The map illustrates the shapes of continental masses elevated higher than sea level. If you take away the seas that delimit the dry land's contours are there any similarities among the underlying (actual?) continental masses / tectonic plates / whatever?

 

[Ermintruder]

These are, as ever, excellent putative propostions as to the (perhaps multiple concurrent?) reasons why the effect is visually-evident: because I think we're agreed there is probably some effect or other going on.

More responses and thoughts tomorrow when I'm awake (if not being dragged away to work) but a few additional comments from me, now, before I forget them:

• There are places where the southbound taper effect is nearly evident, even when it almost isn't. An example of that is the southern tip of Australia, down towards Tasmania. That gives again the overall impression of the same wasp-waist effect, even over a non-contiguous area (ie there's a suggestion the sub-surface plates are following the same ruleset...perhaps?
• The main bulk of Australia (perhaps because of the oblate-sphere-to-flattened-cylinder mercator projection?) is, arguably, quite-suggestive of a compressed Canada/USA. Or, conversely, North America is like a vast stretched Australia.
• Similarly, the overall main body bulk of Eurasia/Siberian Steppes down through Asia Major, seems also similar to North America in general shape, with its southern taper-waist (the southern China 'Texas' abutting as a Mexico/Honduras of Asia, then Korea-ing nearly into Japan

Final comments, for now: like a lot of my ideas/perceptions, this has been bubbling on my conceptual back-burner for years, with no active research, and it is NOT derivative of anyone-else's ideas....it's mainly just yet-another set of collated/self-curated observational perspectives.

I've had no opportunity whatsover (other than in my head) to do an A:B comparison between a traditional classic Mercator-style flattened worldview, and the rarer (equally-valid?) azimuth equidistant polar projection style map of the globe...I think that's the correct term?...as used for the United Nations badge, and as a faith-icon by the Flat Earth fraternity? You know what I mean, I'm sure....

It fascinates me to see whether this arguable comorphic landmass shape 'effect' I'm detecting is evident on that other type of map as well (I have no idea what to expect, as I'm asleep just now, and can't imagine it....so I'm looking forward to finding-out. Someone please have a look for me....I need to properly sleep, for now)

 

[David Plankton]

I always thought that Baffin Island looked almost like a mirror-image of Norway/Sweden.

I'll go so far as to say that the fundamental wedge-shaped broad north, tapering south, and western edge promentary are jumping out at me from all over the global map.

I think the rotation of the Earth might have something to do with this, as noted in Enola's post above.

 

[escargot]

Continental drift. The land masses used to tessellate nicely. There are animations galore of the process on YouTube.

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

Interesting and thought-provoking thread.

Even Svalbard has the pointy bit at the bottom (although arguably not so much the Western prominence):

A look at the United Nations map does show that some of the land-masses have the same features as described, but it isn't as noticeable?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Some of the continents were originally joined together when the landmass was known as Pangaea.
So South America and Africa would have been joined together, hence their similar shape along one edge.
Australia was originally joined to India, but drifted away on its own, leaving a bunch of volcanic islands along the way. India drifted in the other direction and was crushed into the Asian landmass, forming the Himalayas.
The shape is caused by the rotation of the Earth, causing a Coriolis Force effect to create tears and fractures in the Earth's crust, leading to volcanic leakage. This effect may also be accentuated by the uneven mass distribution of the planet - and the consequent differences in gravity all over Earth. Earth 'wobbles' slightly on its axis, which can cause internal stress. Also, we have to think about the gravitation effect of the Moon.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Thought I'd remembered reading about this in The Guardian a few years ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/04/continents-south-triangles

 

[Ermintruder]

The land masses used to tessellate nicely

Yes, totally agreed: but... that just means they jigsaw-fit each-other, along the boundary breaklines from which they've split.

How would that mean (for example) that the west coast shape of South America looks so much like the west coast shape of Africa?

Even Svalbard has the pointy bit at the bottom

Exactly, there's >masses< that're pointy-bit-bottomed. But why?

Is it a representational distortion effect, in that somehow every shape of landmass upon a globe (once you project/stretch that shape onto a flat 2D rectangle)...tends to then look similar, each to other, and get tapered southwards due to geometric mis-mapping?

A look at the United Nations map does show that some of the land-masses have the same features as described, but it isn't as noticeable?

Thanks, that's exactly what I was meaning....I shall also do some comparing (after some inescapable IRL and possibly work-related stuff)

So South America and Africa would have been joined together, hence their similar shape along one edge.

Yes, definitely, fully understood, but I'm specifically saying they appear similar in shape to a degree far beyond just the break:join intercontinental seamlines.

The shape is caused by the rotation of the Earth, causing a Coriolis Force

This might indeed be the most-significant factor (if there is an *actual* geomorphic similarity between the land masses, and it's not just a Mercator representational distortion....when @EnolaGaia suggested this upthread, I did wonder whether that might be the case).

The clincher's going to be...comparing @Schrodinger's Zebra's style of un-Mercatored map with what *appears* on the classic standard global map.

(@blessmycottonsocks ....just saw your post come in as I type.....away to check that, now, even before I log back in for work, thanks!)

[email protected] yes, there's >lots< to think about in that Guardian thread....thanks! Back later, must dash.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Another thought that i had...
Most of the magnetic pull on the planet seems to point to North. It seems unbalanced, probably because of the inconsistent and amorphous nature of the planet's fabric. This may create a magnetic pull in a Northerly direction.
We think of the rock as something solid and immutable, but over geological timescales it has proved to be immensely 'plastic'. The composition of the vast majority of rock is high in ferrous materials (or other materials that respond to magnetic or diamagnetic influence). When the rock of the Earth's mantle is molten or semi-molten magma, there may be a direction to its flow - influenced by gravity, magnetism and coriolis drift. This behaviour may also occur when it breaches the surface as lava. We probably don't see it or notice it happening in our timescale, but over a course of billions of years, it may occur as a cumulative effect.

 

[Ermintruder]

(As an interlude reference...I was trying to remember this, from H2G2TG (blesséd be The Book)

Slartibartfast is a Magrathean, and a designer of planets. His favourite part of the job is creating coastlines, the most notable of which are the fjords found on the coast of Norway on planet Earth, for which he won an award. While trapped on prehistoric Earth, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect see Slartibartfast's signature deep inside a glacier in ancient Norway.

When Earth Mk. II is being made, Slartibartfast is assigned to the continent of Africa. He is unhappy about this because he has begun "doing it with fjords again" (arguing that they give a continent a lovely baroque feel), but has been told by his superiors that they are "not equatorial enough". In relation to this, he expresses the view that he would "far rather be happy than right any day."

The Guardian Readers' Forum responses on the continental shapes are excellent (thanks again @blessmycottonsocks )

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

The 'pointy bits at the bottom' all seem like a pull to the South, like from some sort of magnetic effect in the South.

Or like they're all melting

Or maybe (not being facetious, just sharing random Zebs thoughts about this), maybe there are only limited 'land mass shapes' in the computer program...

 

[Mythopoeika]

The 'pointy bits at the bottom' all seem like a pull to the South, like from some sort of magnetic effect in the South.

Or like they're all melting

Or maybe (not being facetious, just sharing random Zebs thoughts about this), maybe there are only limited 'land mass shapes' in the computer program...

Or a pull to the North...

 

[David Plankton]

Pointy bit going North.

 

[GNC]

Britain has a pointy bit going north, too.

 

[madmath]

Another thought that i had...
Most of the magnetic pull on the planet seems to point to North. It seems unbalanced, probably because of the inconsistent and amorphous nature of the planet's fabric. This may create a magnetic pull in a Northerly direction.
We think of the rock as something solid and immutable, but over geological timescales it has proved to be immensely 'plastic'. The composition of the vast majority of rock is high in ferrous materials (or other materials that respond to magnetic or diamagnetic influence). When the rock of the Earth's mantle is molten or semi-molten magma, there may be a direction to its flow - influenced by gravity, magnetism and coriolis drift. This behaviour may also occur when it breaches the surface as lava. We probably don't see it or notice it happening in our timescale, but over a course of billions of years, it may occur as a cumulative effect.

The magnetic field has flipped many, many times over the billions, so over time it would have averaged out.
Continents have moved, connected, and disconnected over time, so they've changed orientation, size, and shape many a time.

 

[Krepostnoi]

Britain has a pointy bit going north, too.

And no pointy bit going south, for that matter. Even the Isle of Wight is flat-bottomed. Freddy Mercury understood the tectonic mechanism: "Flat-bottomed isles, you make the rocking world go round." Whereby I refute the flat-Earth hypothesis.

 

[Victory]

It hints at art.

 

[Ermintruder]

It hints at art

It does: but many things can do without being truly such (I do so very much want to trip over into metaphysical conjecture on this, including an inevitable-but-contentious corollary that whispers to me, but no, I shall resist for now)

But on a related note; I cannot currently remember the exact source (potentially via a brief sortie into some online Flat Earth belief-set, somewhere....me, as a mystified investigator, I stress, not an acolyte):

Some of the FE fringe factions believe that all pictures-of-a-globular-world-from-space are faked, so as to surpress the 'truth' of a flat disk Earth.

Now: a thread-relevant interesting aspect about this (pun intended) is that they've claimed much of the NASA (and other international agency) images of the Earth from space are impossible, in that instead of showing spherically-adhering imagesets of the world's land geography, they (the powers-that-be, I don't know, pay attention) are casually-depicting a 'wrong' mercator-like 2D familiar crowd-pleasing image, via a multiseries of artificial created pictures.

This intrigues me....because I *think* (nb I haven't checked, please have a look) that satellite/spacecraft imagery of 'The Blue Planet' maybe >does< all look a bit too elementary-school-recognisably-compliant with what we're all familiar with on a mercator 2D basis, and NOT the much-less-familiar polar-projection/UN logo geocratic sophisticated version.

I'm predisposed to being skeptical about absolutely everything (in fact I suspect you may not exist, either) but I do wonder what the conventional orthodoxy explanation is for this prima facie charge by FE fans of a failingly-falsified globularity.

Shall try to do a full comparison soon between the polar projection world map resultant land-shapes, and the classic conventional mercator. In respect of my original (non-novel) observation regarding southbound pointy landmasses, with westward (trailing-edge?) prominacity.

(ps apologies, again, I'm writyping whilst sleeping. Roll on Tuesday....but I'm not sure which one)

 

[Mythopoeika]

It hints at art.

To think like that would be to anthropomorphise it, wouldn't it?