#rain shadow

I believe that, based on evidence from Skyward Sword, that the area we know today as the Gerudo Desert was once the Lanayru Ocean thousands of years prior to the events of Skyward Sword & that the Gerudo originate from the land on the other side of that vast ocean.

When the desert was an ocean, Hyrule was either a tiny island country the size of Kyoto or a small corner of a larger, snow-covered continent that we don't ever really see the extent of.

As aside from the Gerudo Desert, the only other place that we see Hyrule's land linking up with other land that we can't cross is at the western & northern borders of the Gerudo Highlands, Hyrule Ridge, Hebra, Woodland, & Eldin regions. Aside from Woodland & Eldin, those areas being mostly covered in snow & ice.

This tells us that the continent that Hyrule lives on is likely in the northern hemisphere of whatever world they live in. Likely around or a bit less than 4,000 mi north of their world's equator. Though, that's assuming that their world is the same size as ours.

I suspect that while the lands beyond the borders of Hyrule Ridge, Hebra, Woodland, & Eldin were always part of the continent's geography, the land on the other side of the Gerudo Desert wasn't & it's the Gerudo Desert itself that allows the 2 lands to connect, this plus the location of the Faron Sea means it is a coastal desert & connects Hebra, Faron, & Central Hyrule to whatever land is beyond the Gerudo Desert.

Part of the reason that the ocean dried up to begin with could involve the tectonic plates around the now Gerudo Highlands pushing the land up to slowly create taller & taller mountains over the course of those thousands of years between Demise's initial sealing & the events of Skyward Sword, which in turn would block rain from that area. This makes the Gerudo Desert a Rain Shadow. However, that means that the Gerudo Desert is on the leeward side of the Highlands (meaning the side facing away from prevailing winds).

I've also seen people suggest that the south of Hyrule is near the equator of their world, but wouldn't that suggest that their planet is miniscule? Unless Hyrule isn't actually to scale & has been minimized. Which, could work & would give Hyrule a lot more room to work with. In such a case, it'd actually be about the size of North America, yeah?

We know that there are at least 3, possibly 4 or even 5, if we count content from the old Zelda cartoon & comics, more countries out there in their world; Labrynna, Holodrum, (wherever an Oracle of Secrets game would take place; Calatia maybe), & what, in Spirit Tracks, is known as New Hyrule.

Which, I actually suspect that New Hyrule is actually Termina itself or an alternate Termina. Which I think that, if Termina itself, then it is just located east of Hyrule across the Necluda Sea. Just turn New Hyrule onto it's right side & the 2 maps look surprisingly similar.

Arapaho National Forest, Colorado.

Alabama Hills and the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Mobius Arch in California is hardly remarkable as far as natural arches go, but it draws photographers anyways because it offers the opportunity to photograph Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states, framed by the arch. The jagged peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains contrast beautifully against the rounded contours of the 2-meter (6 feet) tall Mobius Arch and the other rocks of the Alabama Hills. Despite what their drastically different appearances might suggest, the rocks that make up the two neighboring formations are the same age - both were the result of geologic uplift 100 million years ago. Different geologic processes have shaped them since.

Sometime after the uplift, the Alabama Hills became a moist, highly vegetated region, meaning the granite was chemically weathered by percolating water. This type of erosion creates the rounded rock.

About 5 million years ago, fault-block uplift (the crust is pulled apart and some large blocks are pushed upwards while others collapse downward) created the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The mountains were shaped initially by the uplift, and more recently by glaciers.

The mountains put the Alabama Hills in a rain shadow that killed the vegetation. Over time, the soil eroded away revealing the weather rocks.

RE

Photo Credit: Barb Ignatius http://bit.ly/1ydIpZV

Rain shadow

Mountainous areas usually induce precipitation by causing masses of air flowing past them to rise, cool and precipitate their moisture as clouds. The Alps and Andes get their snow and ice caps in this way, as the moist marine air of the Atlantic and Pacific respectively gets blown onto the continents by the prevailing winds. Even lower lying hilly areas such as the Welsh hills in western Britain seem to congeal the Atlantic's wetness out of the air, resulting in Britain's reputation for general soggyness. Similarly in the high Himalaya, the first chain of peaks and their foothills (still an impressive 2,500 metres high) is abundantly watered by the monsoon during the months of August to October. As the heat on the Indian plains builds up during 'summer', enhanced by the absorption of the huge areas of flood basalt known as the Deccan Trapps, the air rises, pulling in moist air off the Indian Ocean that gathers into the monsoon, assuring the subcontinent's food supply since time immemorial.

During the monsoon, the first chain of the Himalayas essentially shuts down as torrential rains cause landslides, cut roads and turn the foothills (made of unconsolidated marine muds) into a morass. In Hindu mythology this chain of peaks and hills are the dreadlocks of Siva, who collects the water poured down by Ganga, goddess of the Ganges, and channels it into the sacred rivers of India that snake down the plains toward the Bay of Bengal and Arabian seas. The water that falls as snow and compacts into ice in the fast retreating glaciers provide a store, that is released during the hot dry months allowing life below to continue.

On the other side however, it is a different story. The Tibetan Plateau is rising up piston like behind the first chain in response to the tremendous tectonic forces involved in the slow motion collision of the Subcontinent with Asia. Perched at an average 4-5000 metres, the rainfall in these barren lands is alot more scant, since all the moisture has either rained onto the Indian side or fallen as snow over the first big chain of peaks, a phenomenon known as a rain shadow. Other well known one is the Atacama desert, shielded from the moist Atlantic winds blowing across the South American landmass by the chain of the Andes.

There is some precipitation in Tibet, but the region depends on the glaciers that release the frozen monsoon down their side of the chain, forming rivers like the Brahmaputra, Yangtse and Mekong. The landscape in the photo is typical of the plateau, with a green splashed valley in which a braided river is transporting runoff and glacial melt water through a barren world, with powerful peaks rising all around.

Loz