Part 2.
Making the simulator The TGEA model earth would be a basic dts sphere. It would then have some curved meshes (dts objects) mounted to on it to simulate the shifting continental plates. The model earth and moon would respond to real game physics for gravity to simulate an orbit. The dts mesh plates would also respond to the gravitational pull of the sun and moon. In the TGEA simulation, the sun could simply be a fixed gravitational spot (and source of light). Some plates are known to be on top, and others to be on the bottom where they meet, so this is kind of important. To do it right, the tectonic plate meshes would need to have collision detection much better than a simple bounding box. It can't be built to actual scale (distance between a scaled down version of the earth and moon is too great for a basic TGEA map), and the physics can only approximate the real pull... but a basic approximation of the theory could be done.
Earth Plate Tectonics
Then you feed in the eclipse data so the moon is orbiting correctly... and let the simulation begin on a certain date. Eclipse and earth quake data below.
Quote :On Wednesday, 22 July 2009, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean.
eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.htmlearthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/43.45.-111.-109_eqs.phpYou could do it for past earth quakes to see the correlation too. If anyone wants to do this game, by all means go for it. Who knows? You might even get a government grant to fund its development. The image above shows a total eclipse in South East Asia July 2009. (It starts right over the plates between India and Burma). Bangladesh may be a mess this summer. We see the seam right in the middle of the pacific where the eclipse is in full effect. Wonder if a major earthquake would create a tsunami for Japan and New Zealand. If this theory is right then Japan would get a both a quake and a tsunami this summer. It’s really curios to see if there is anything to this theory. This one article Russian confirm planetary angular momentum theory ... seems kind a half baked. World Earthquake MapsSimulations SCEC Southern California Earthquake Center Video of Earthquake, and Tsunami Simulation Disaster machines: Simulating earthquakes M7.0 Earthquake Simulation for Hayward Fault, California TGEA 1.8.0 looks much better than any of the other computer simulation software we've seen so far. a thought that we could use shaders to show the stress and pull of the moon on the earth's plates. When the moon hits the seams we could use an earth quake shader like the last video with the ripple.
Parting Thoughts Wikipedia Tides The tidal forces are also stronger when the sun and moon are inline. The thought is that the liquid hot magma beneath the tectonic plates must also follow a similar principle. The earth rotates beneath the moon faster than the moon orbits the earth. So in theory a few hours before / after the eclipse you could have some shifting in the tidal magma beneath the tectonic plate. The whole day of 22 July 2009 will be interesting. The earth will rotate in the summer so that the northern hemisphere is facing the sun. The moon will cross over 3 distinct tectonic plates known for earth quakes on that day. It’s perfectly possible there will be some pretty heavy earthquakes in those regions on 22 July 2009.
