The Great Discovery of Warren the Explorer

A hotspot is a cluster of magma that is trying to move to the surface of a planet. In some occasions hotspots move with tectonic plates.

“Hmmmmmmm” Warren thought aloud. “I think I’ll keep studying this planet.” As it turned out Warrens crash landing was right on a transform plate boundary. That was why the magma got through to the surface so easily. Warren went to the nearest Space-Mart to go get supplies to camp out on the planet for a while. He arrived at the planet amidst a large scale volcanic eruption. Fortunately for him it was not affecting the area that he been planning to camp out on.

Soon after, another small earthquake struck, and so on for the rest of the day. When Warren awoke he saw that he had fallen asleep in front of the seismometer. When he glanced at it he saw all of the data that it had gathered overnight. He looked at the data and saw that there was only very small earthquakes all night. None of them would’ve even tripped you if you were walking. they may have not even made you lose your balance. “Hmmmmmmm” Warren thought aloud. “It seems like earthquakes happen about every 3 hours on this planet.”

“This could be a massive discovery” he thought to himself. “Maybe i should explore this planet” And so he did. For the next 2 days he explored the planet, ready for anything. Warren was walking on the planets surface looking for geologic clues to this mysterious planet. He noticed a lot of volcanoes in the area that he crashed the first time but when he landed he was in a completely different area. He suspected that that area he had crashed on had been a very large hotspot or a group of hotspots.

“Because even the government can be fans of someone’s work” the agent said while laughing “Our project at this site, because you were interested enough to try to sneak in, is to cut the tectonic plates into smaller bits to make the earthquake risk much lower. But, well, as you can probably guess that didn’t work too well.” “There was too much stress on the small part of the plate that we cut off and well we made a new mountain range.” “You’re free to go now by the way.” said the agent “We’ll overlook you sneaking in here, for now at least.”

As Warren returned to his home on the countryside with his spaceship he created a public article on his website explaining the geological events and supernatural things he experienced while he was on Tectentricia.

Warren used to be a seismologist which is what got him travelling to other planets so freely. he figured that this planet was full of hot spots and hyperactive convection currents in the planet itself. He rested for while pondering whether or not he should take off his helmet to test the atmosphere. After a while he decided it was too risky, at least until he’s completely safe.

He hobbled towards his ravaged spaceship to salvage whatever as left. He found two weeks worth of food and water and a working communication system. The only issue was he was injured and had no way to get energy to use the com system. “Well, I guess its time to salvage what’s left of the ship” He found a fire extinguisher, 3 AA batteries and a battered tent. The 3 batteries would be enough to send a short SOS message to the closest ship or inhabited planet. He tried to use the old ship antenna to boost the transmission signal.

As Warren drifted into sleep, he thought of ways to find the source of the phenomenon that happened on Earth. When Warren awoke he had almost landed on Earth. When he arrived he immediately tried to start investigating but the entire city was barricaded by government officers accompanied by the military. He had to find a way to investigate, but he already had a hypothesis. Seeing as to the fact that the government was protecting the area he believed that they might have caused this somehow. But he just didn’t know how to go about it yet.

He tried to sleep but after seeing that fresh mountain range almost 3/4 the size of Mount Everest he just couldn’t. He thought and thought, but there was no scientific explanation yet. He would be the one to unearth this conspiracy. The next morning Warren got to it that he would find the cause of the crazy new mountains. He decided that retracing where the mountains came from was the best course of action. He followed where the plate came from and found a huge government base there. That just made him more suspicious.

Then, only minutes later it began turning into a small ravine that stretched beyond Warrens sight. Once the ground calmed Warren slowly began following the ravine and sitting just a metre away from the end of the ravine was his ship. “Well that was lucky” he said while laughing As he got into his ship he thought “I need to either give this planet a name or find its current name.” Afterwards he went to the nearest inhabited planet and asked around if they knew of the planet. He came across a select few who knew the planet was there but they did not seem to know it’s name. “I shall name this planet” he exclaimed excitedly

He thought and thought and after probably an hour had passed he said “Tectentricia! The planet of fast tectonics!” He then left Tectentricia on his own trek back to earth. “Well, this is going to take a while even going faster than light speed, so I should find something to do.” “I know! I’ll look at what’s happening on Earth from my phone.”

It worked. He reached a nearby ship that come to pick him up and treat his wounds. He gave his thanks and asked to be brought to the nearest space station, and so he got there, with no ship... Nothing. Well not exactly nothing. He had a card with enough money on it to get everything he needed. First he bought a new ship and food, next he bought a seismometer and the tools to use it, next he fueled his ship, ready to set off back to that intriguing planet. When he arrived at his planet he hastily set up his seismometer and waited.

This is is a seismometer. It measures the strength of earthquakes by using this machine here. It is called a seismometer because it’s like a thermometer for seismologists.

As soon as the seismometer was set up a small earthquake occurred. Warren figured that earthquakes were generally smaller on this planet which he would have to find out for himself if he was right or not.  

As Warren read about the status of Earth he realized that something very similar to what happened to him happened on Earth. While he was surveying the planet that he had just named Tectentricia almost the exact opposite thing happened. He read on “It was a completely normal day as far as we could tell, but then, suddenly everyone around was knocked off their feet like the ground was moving.” The article explained As He read on he realized that a convergent plate boundary had suddenly lurched at itself and made a huge mountain range in the middle of the city.

“What could have caused such a phenomenon?”

This is a convergent plate boundary. Over time, these boundaries slowly become mountain ranges because of the rock that gets crushed when the two plates collide.

Warren started to think to himself a little more seriously after hearing that. He went to the safe room that was prepared for crash landing situations and braced for the impact. He heard loud flame-like sounds likely from the heat of his ship entering the atmosphere at an uncontrolled speed. He did his best to be in a position he wouldn’t get hurt from The crash but he only had so much time. He thought of survival and the fact that his computer said “uninhabited” not “uninhabitable” so it might have a breathable atmosphere. That’s a good start. He was suddenly interrupted by his computer.

“10” “9” “8” “7” “6” “5” “4” “3” “2” “1” Warren awoke suddenly on the ground, injured. He looked around, wanting to know where he was. He suddenly understood why the planet was uninhabited.

He snuck into the government base through a very convenient hole in the electrified fence. Careful not to make noise he walked over to the center of the open courtyard. There was one very long building here. Warren slowly opened the door to the base, careful not to be too loud. It was weird though because nobody was in the vicinity. Warren only had a few seconds to realize that there were security cameras everywhere before he had guns pointed at him from all directions. “YOUR UNDER ARREST FOR TRESPASSING ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!” screamed the leader or the platoon.

“I was so close to finding the cause too.” Warren said disappointedly “Huh?” one of the platoon soldiers asked “Nothing.” “Good.” He was put in holding in the government building so that he could be interrogated. During the interrogation the agent realized who Warren was and asked “Why did you sneak into the government building? If you had asked we would’ve let you in.” “Why would you have done that?” Warren asked

There are 3 types of tectonic plate boundaries: Transform, convergent, and divergent. A Transform plate boundary occurs when two tectonic plates are moving side by side like this.

And a divergent boundary is like this one.

Using all of the data he had gathered so far he had a hypothesis. “I think that this planet has small, thin, and fast moving plates.” “That would mean that the mantle is extra hot and that the core and very cold.” After spending a week confirming his hypothesis through heavier data collection he tried to find his ship again. But Warren had lost it. “Well crap!” Warren exclaimed frustratingly. “At least I still have my survival gear” Suddenly he saw a small crack forming in the ground under his feet.

Warren, the legendary space explorer was on his calm, one-person spaceship when he heard something coming from the control room on his ship. He went to investigate, and what he found shocked him. His navigation system blew and was on fire! There was thick, black smoke coming from the control room. He got his fire suppression emergency kit and did his best to calm the raging fire with his measly fire extinguisher. In the end he saved most of his ship from damage but the entire control room was fried. “Well, crap!” He thought to himself.

As warren thought of ways he could fix it his automated computer assistant gave a warning. “WARNING APPROACHING UNINHABITED PLANET, CRASH LANDING IMMINENT.” “I guess i should brace for impact” Warren said jokingly. “CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 25%” said the computer

This book is dedicated to scimatics because, well, thats what class we were forced to make this in

Characters: Warren: legendary space explorer. Was once a well known seismologist. Loves piloting spaceships and exploring new planets.

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