by Chris Wayan, 2006
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East Asian Seas: Overview
On Earth, this region is a series of island arcs--mini-plates mostly hidden by some of the deepest seas on the planet. On Siphonia, the region's revealed as a rugged zone sculpted by violent tectonic forces-bristling with volcanoes and scored by deep trenches. From the summit of Mt Fuji in the Japan Range to the floor of the trenches offshore to the east, it's a vertical drop of 13 km (40,000'!), and the relief near the Philippine and Taiwan Mts is nearly as extreme.
China Sea
Not the East China Sea or the South China Sea; just the China Sea. The shallow northern sea separating Taiwan and Korea from China is now a cool, forested plateau reminiscent of New England or Canada.
What we know as the South China Sea has shrunk to about half-size; what survives is mostly the north. The south is a maze of low, jungly sounds below mild, wooded plateaus--the former Paracel and Spratly Islands.
When the oceans drained away the China Sea was left stranded in its high basin like a tidepool. Some water poured out the Bataan Strait; the sea level dropped 2500 m. As the atmosphere poured down into the suddenly empty abyssal plains, "sea level" pressure (and climate) migrated downward about the same distance; the China Sea climate today is thus a little cooler, but the region has changed less than any other on Siphonia.
Unless you taste the water. Go ahead. It's fresh, isn't it? Rains here are generous, if not quite as torrential as on Earth; the "sea" still spills east into the Philippine Sea, over a sill between Luzon and Taiwan. A freshwater river, not brine; the China Sea is really a huge lake now. Precipitation has freshened the surface layers and the southern sounds, though the cold depths of the northern basin are still salty.
Lake Sulu, in the heart of the Philippine Range, is a good 3 km up (4 above the Pacific sea level) and drains northwest into the China Sea. Even larger Lake Celebes just south of it rivals the Sea of Japan as the deepest body of water in the world: over 3 km (10,000') on average; it drains northeast through a serpentine chain of lower lakes to the...
Philippine Sea
On Earth, this sea is defined only by geology; the islands fencing it off from the greater Pacific to the East are mere specks to a surface mariner. But deep mapping reveals it's a small but independent tectonic plate, bounded by tall mountain ranges and deep trenches; it's just hidden by some of the deepest seas on Earth.
But this isn't Earth; it's Siphonia. Here, the savagely rugged landscape is exposed. This Philippine Sea is nearly split into two long, brackish lakes or seas, the smaller East and wider West Philippine Seas, linked by a wide strait in the north; they're at the same level, both 500 meters above the Pacific. Like Lakes Huron and Michigan, they're one body of water. But they drain through separate rivers, down to the Pacific! There's no other situation like this on Siphonia, though Earth has a parallel: the Guyana region in South America. One can sail up the Amazon, along winding inland rivers, and reach the Orinoco River, riding it back to the sea. If we were being strict, the Guyana highlands form a separate continent, and quite a large one! Similarly, on Siphonia the long dividing strip, the Parece Vela highlands, is really an island, but one with shores at different levels! Such situations only arise where there's a lot of rain...
The eastern shore of the basin is rather like two parallel Japans: a long strip of land dotted with tall volcanoes. There's even a long Inland Sea. But the vertical's exaggerated: Fuji, whose name means "no two" (unique, peerless) would here be overlooked among the dozens of volcanoes 5 km (3 mi) high that rise almost randomly throughout the east.
The Parece Vela range (dividing the two Philippine basins) is lower, but not by much. 3000 km long, it's a narrow peninsula with a wide lake-dappled bulbous tip, like a kite on a string. As I mentioned, it's surrounded entirely by water (though two stretches are rivers), so it could be considered a great island--larger than New Guinea.
The western shore is all high mountains: the Ryukyu, Taiwan and Philippine Mts; Jade Peak in the Taiwans is 8500 m above local sea level (28,000'). At these low latitudes, many of these mountain valleys have cool, pleasantly mild climates.
The main Philippine Basin is not mild. This close to the equator, such dense air heats up in summer to 40-45 C (104-113 F). Humidity is 80-100%; hurricanes are common. Rainforests grow huge, up to 100 m tall, with feathery leaves to minimize wind-shear. Instead of parasitic vines, symbiotic ones bind together the canopy; even dead trees take years to fall.
The civilization of the Philippine Basin will not be human. Some smaller treetop creature would be ideal, whether an arboreal mammal (lemurs, orangutans?) or avian (giant parrots or ravens, buoyed up by the dense air).
Chinese Plateau
Brr! South China is what North China was, in winter. Well, no, I'm exaggerating--and a Californian. Temperate climates don't seem temperate at all to me! Hot humid summers and cold winters, that's all. Quite like Eastern Europe, or New York, really. Milder in some areas. The old coast, now the Chinese Escarpment, is frost-free in some winters, nearly up to Shanghai. But in a bad winter the freezes sweep down all the way to the Hainan Hills, south of old Hong Kong. The once-modest eastern mountains are snowcapped. Inland, the ramparts around Sichuan are ice-capped; the great valley itself is now a subalpine grassland. It's basically Mongolian. Humans do live farm and herd there, but only a few million. The hundred million farmers of our Sichuan will have to move way downstream, to the China Sea. Too bad there'll be a billion people in line ahead of them...
Lake Japan
The deepest body of water on Siphonia, averaging 3 km (10,000'), nearly as deep as on Earth. Though it looks small, it holds more water than the huge Mornington Sea or Nazca Sea.
The reason is simple. The straits draining the Sea are shallow, and the basin gets generous precipitation. When the seas around it sank away, the Sea of Japan was stranded, just like the China Sea. It's really a huge freshwater lake--at least on the surface. The depths are briny and will remain so for millennia. The low spot draining it is probably to the east in Okhotsk Basin; a river will pour down to the Kurile Sea. Or maybe not; I can't be sure the southern straits aren't a hair deeper, in which case the outlet will pour south into Lake Taiwan (or perhaps it should be named Ryukyu) and then into the northern Philippine Sea. I'm so undecided I've drawn both, a scenario that's clearly not gonna happen. Just so you know...
As the atmosphere poured down into the oceanic abysses, pressure here dropped; along the shores it's equivalent to over a mile high. So although the evergreen-forested shores look rather like our Japan, the climate's much colder--more like northern Hokkaido or even Kamchatka. Fuji and the Japan Alps are ice-mantled to their knees. Land of the bear, of the Siberian tiger!
If humans live here, they'll be Ainu. Won back their homeland at last!
Kurile Sea
An uncertain lake/sea. Does it have an outlet to the Pacific? Probably. The Aleutian Range is high, but there are some gaps, and quite a lot of water flows in from Lake Japan and from the Okhotsk Basin to the north. So my best guess is a Lake Kurile (of uncertain size and depth) carving a canyon-outlet for itself; the lake will slowly shrink and its level fall.
Lake Kurile will be much warmer than Lake Japan, even though it's further north; for while its exact altitude is uncertain, it's much lower, and has broad lowlands around it, instead of icy peaks within a day's hike.
Not that the region is mountainless! Our Kamchatka Peninsula is now a rugged isthmus between the Kurile and the Pacific; its gigantic, icecapped mountains culminate in volcanic Klyucha, rearing 9700 m (32,000') above the Pacific coast.
Climate here and just to the north was once the coldest outside Greenland and Antarctica; but the deep Okhotsk lowlands and the Aleutian Coast have much denser air and much warmer (if wildly unpredictable) weather. At least in summer; in winter, the hard freeze to the north sends a steady katabatic blast down into the basin, heating as it drops and compresses; like the mistral, foehn, and other dry winter winds, it brings blue skies and moderate temperatures, but also a relentless pressure, desiccation, and a storm of positive ions. Even if you think ions don't affect mood, an endless dry wind can! Plants droop; animals hide; humans just go mad. Rates of depression and conflict soar here during the Shaman's Wind.
The following route snakes around Siphonia, covering most features (under construction)
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