Planet Zoo Island Zoo
Kanisha Dezarn
Island planets are common in science-fiction, and we've even got a few questions about them in worldbuilding. However, I cannot help but wonder how, or if, they could form. On Earth, at least, our geological processes lead to the formation of lots of continents, and only a few islands, relative to their total surface area.
Would it be possible for a planet to form with no major landmasses larger than, say, New Zealand, but lots of islands? What sort of geological processes would form a planet like this, instead of an Earth-like one? Ideally, I'd like the planet to be inhabitable, as well.
Let's consider the processes that create islands, as well as those that create "continents". First, let's establish the fact that the Earth's crust is chemically different than its lower lithosphere and mantle. The crust is formed from lower-melting-point, lighter rocks, which melt and float to the surface of the lithosphere.
Now: what differentiates dry land from ocean? Obviously, it's the height of that chunk of crust. On Earth, our large oceans usually form at oceanic ridges, which are locations where two tectonic plates spread apart. This produces thin, low-lying crust. Of course, to maintain the size of the planet, there are plates being forced underneath others at subduction zones.
Typically, islands are formed from volcanic action. Volcanoes usually happen at the edges of tectonic plates. When one plate subducts under another, it heats due to friction, and crustal rocks melt and are pushed upwards, emerging on the upper plate. Hawaii is an example of a volcanic island that isn't located at the edge of a plate. Its volcanoes are the result of a plume of hotter mantle billowing up from near the core and creating a hot spot on the pacific plate. Finally, islands can be created when larger land masses are eroded, leaving separated harder rocks dotted around.
Continents are really just big collects of old, high crustal rock. They've clumped up and broken apart many times through Earth's history, basically following the tectonic plates wherever they go. As plates slide around, they begin to consolidate their clumps of crust, and large continents result.
Cratons are those innermost parts of continents which don't get flooded by seawater no matter how much the sea level rises. On our home planet, earth, primitive cratons appeared long ago. Some ... 4 billion years or so. These were pieces of higher ground which did not get submerged in the water when the primitive oceans formed.
Those primitive smallish pieces of lands were like large chunks of mud sitting on the mantle (the middle layer of earth). These cratons were not stable on their positions, but were rather moving rapidly due to the activity of the mantle those days. Those small islands (cratons) collided and some of them fused into each other permanently. These were the first proto continents.
The underneath part of continents (which sits on the mantle) is known as tectonic plate. Nowadays these plates are slowly moving (their movement was much faster in the past) due to processes known as ocean floor spreading and subduction zones. At places of ocean floor spreading, lava in the mantle spews out on the ocean floor and pushes it off. It is sort of like the earth is trying to get bigger. If there is a region of sea floor spreading between two continents (there is, between Africa and South America), it will push the continents apart.
There is another thing known as a subduction zone. It is a place where stuff from the crust falls back into the mantle. Subdunction zones are present where two tectonic plates are present and one is pushing the other down into the mantle. This is sort of like the planet is getting smaller. The overall effect of ocean floor spreading and crust subduction is that the planet neither gets bigger, nor smaller, but it's tectonic plates move around.
1- Earth-like tectonic plates with a higher sea level. This means your planet is just like our home planet, only the sea level is higher (the higher the sea level, the smaller and the lesser the number of islands). For this I present you a picture of earth during the cretaceous period (nearly 70 million years ago).
During the Cretaceous, the sea level was much, much higher than it is today. So a lot of what is earth now, used to be part of the ocean then. These regions are marked as light purple on the map which shows that this is part of land, covered by water. These are shallow seas with depth no more than 300 feet.
If you keep increasing the sea level, the purple regions would start increasing and taking up more of the land. This is one strategy for you if you want to have an island planet. The islands would swim about in the oceans (a few inches per year) but they would stay islands.
2- No active mantle activity. If you have a planet where the mantle is not as active as Earth's, then it is possible that the primary cratons never fused together to form larger bits (the first continents). For this, we need an ollld planet (some 5 billion years old). It needs to have an active mantle activity period in the past but now the mantle activity is dead (as earth's mantle would be nearly dead in around 500 million years or so). It used to be a fully terrestrial planet in the past (no oceans, all land) but then a massive storm of water-coments hit the planet and transformed it into a planet like earth: mostly composed of water. Now only the higher grounds of the planet are island and the rest is sea. These islands are not moving even 1mm per year and are stay put where they are.
If you take a page from waterworld, you could take various aspects of global warming flooding along with an older planet's erosion for a previously earth like planet to become more of an island planet. Perhaps the erosion was due to a previously acidic rain that wore away the features of the planet with greater speed (and gradually became neutralized due to terraforming efforts, or a species of life that used it for its metabolism, converting it to something neutral)
You should also consider the reason we have (dry) land is plate tectonics, in which there is a floating cold "crust" on top of a molten sphere of metal, and various parts of that crust are being pushed and pulled around, raising certain areas of it out of the sea (which would technically cover the entire planet if the crust was completely smooth). Perhaps your planet could have a cooler core that was not as tectonically active? (this would perhaps translate to an older, or smaller planet)
Since oceans are basically just flooded lowland, If you added more water on the planet to begin with, only very tall volcanos or mountains could pierce the ocean. Or perhaps try a combination of these things!
Planet Island is an Outer Island for My Singing Monsters: The Forest's Call that contains the adult versions of certain Materians. It is unlocked at the start of the game, and select Materians can be teleported here at Level 16. It also just so happens to be a giant Reptilobeat. It debuts Coukoulerette, Reptilobeat, Aligano, and Rokenrol in their adult forms (their baby forms were already on the Pangaea).
The planet that the island is on is the planet of a baby Reptilobeat, somehow blasted into space and grown to its true size, which is also part of the explanation for the Materian moon's shape. A few people prefer that the latter had been just a stylistic choice.
By the end of the stories, though, both boys have matured. Treasure Planet Jim uses his skills on a solar surfer to save the day and he hugs his mom. He is willing to engage with the world around him and the people who matter in a meaningful way, which is a grown-up way of acting.
But in Treasure Island, it seems quite possible that there is a secret island full of treasure in the middle of the sea. Jim can hardly contain his excitement when the ship sets off. The idea of setting out to sea in that time was just as exciting as the idea of setting out in space in this time because both are widely unknown.
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In People, Planet, Design, architect Corey Squire builds the case, provides the data, and lays out the practical tools for a transformative human-centered architecture. This approach integrates beauty and delight with an awareness of how every design choice impacts the community, the planet, and the people who will use the building.
Join Corey as he discusses his new vision for design solutions while he also outlines clear guidance on how it can be implemented. Corey believes that it is only when design prioritizes people, as it should, that architecture can realize its full potential.
SARAH GONZALEZ, HOST: There are two ways to get to Barbuda - on a seven-seater unreliable plane or a rocky ferry.Oh, my God.SCOTT GURIAN, HOST: Really rocky.GONZALEZ: Oh.GURIAN: The ferry leaves once a day from Antigua. Antigua and Barbuda are two islands that make up one country. And the trip takes about two hours.GONZALEZ: Antigua is mountainous and touristy with about 98,000 residents. That's where the government is. Barbuda is flat - like, flat-flat. Like, it looks flat like a penny. Wow, I've never seen an island that flat before.GURIAN: Yeah. You could jog across Barbuda in about 30 minutes. It's rural, just about a thousand homes, 1,500 residents.GONZALEZ: Goats.GURIAN: Probably more animals here than people.GONZALEZ: Goats and sheep. It's the kind of island where wild donkeys just walk into your home. The houses are all, like, pastel turquoise with grey, mint green with peach, peach with orange - and where no one wants lobster anymore.ATKINSON BEAZER: We have lobster for breakfast. We have it for lunch. We have it for dinner. We eat lobster three times a day. So a piece of chicken in between is not bad (laughter).GURIAN: There are fruit trees everywhere.BEAZER: They're loaded with lots of vitamin C. And this is how we live. This is our plot (ph).(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)GURIAN: And it has the most powdery untouched pink sand beaches.(SOUNDBITE OF WAVE CRASHING)GONZALEZ: It's a tough job, but a job.GURIAN: Someone's got to do it.NATALIA JOHN: The land of sun and sea, beautiful Barbuda.GONZALEZ: This is Natalia John, but everyone calls her...JOHN: Hey Gal.GONZALEZ: Why is that your nickname?JOHN: Long story.GONZALEZ: Tell me the story.JOHN: (Laughter) My brother couldn't say Natalia, so he would just say, hey, gal. Hey, gal.GURIAN: Hey Gal was born in Barbuda. Her mom and her grandma were, too. She actually lives in her grandma's house. She has her own plot of land, too, but she hasn't built anything on it yet.JOHN: No, not of yet, but I have my sand and my stone on it so nobody can go and take it.GONZALEZ: What does that mean - your sand and your stone?JOHN: Just to show that something is going to happen on that land soon.GONZALEZ: You put some sand and some stone down just to show that something's going to happen on that land soon, so don't take it, because in Barbuda, land isn't something you buy and sell; it's something you just have.JOHN: People just go cut what they want, clear it and start building. You get your stake or, you know, whatever, and you build.GONZALEZ: Just take a piece of land and be like, OK, there's my fence. This is my land.JOHN: That's how we usually do it.GONZALEZ: For free - no money.JOHN: For free - no money. So that's how I grew up.GONZALEZ: Not even taxes?JOHN: Not even taxes.GONZALEZ: Not even, like, a permit fee - nothing? Like, really $0?JOHN: No, $0.GONZALEZ: Free-free - no paperwork, no lease, no rental agreement, no title - just a whole 62 square mile tropical island shared communally and informally.GURIAN: This is why we came to Barbuda.GONZALEZ: Barbudans say they don't just own the plot of land they put a fence on. They own and share the whole island collectively - all its resources, all the land. They use it in common. That's what it's called.JOHN: Most of us know where the land is available - you know, what is available. Sometimes somebody's land, but, hey, you didn't see anything to show, so they just get the next piece. That's it.GONZALEZ: Oops. You didn't put a fence up fast enough, so get the next chunk.JOHN: Right, right.GONZALEZ: Only Barbudans have this right. People on the neighboring island, Antigua - they can't claim land in Barbuda, even though it is the same country. You have to be born in Barbuda and have a grandparent born in Barbuda, or a parent. That's the only rule.GURIAN: And that's basically how it's worked since the 1800s. But now all that might change.GONZALEZ: Can you say, hello, and welcome to PLANET MONEY?FRANZ DEFREITAS: Yeah. Well, I say (ph) welcome to PLANET MONEY, to the islands Antigua and Barbuda right here.GONZALEZ: I'm Sarah Gonzalez.GURIAN: And I'm Scott Gurian.GONZALEZ: Scott's with us from his podcast, "Far From Home."GURIAN: Owning land individually with a title is one of the basics of old-school capitalism.GONZALEZ: But getting a little piece of paper that says, yes, you own this lot - not everyone does that. Today on the show, the island nobody owns...GURIAN: Or everyone owns, depending on who you ask.GONZALEZ: ...And what happens when someone finally decides to start selling it.ALBERT PADDY SIMON: Barbuda has the greatest land deal on Earth.GURIAN: This is Albert Paddy Simon.SIMON: They call me the griot.GONZALEZ: The griot?SIMON: Oh, you don't know that. For those who are not familiar with the term, it simply means a verbal historian. Call me the griot - not historian.GONZALEZ: And don't say he speaks English either.SIMON: I'm an Antiguan. And when I speak, me talk Antiguan - yeah, me talk Antiguan. Antiguan I come from (ph). Antiguan I come from (ph).GURIAN: Again, Antigua and Barbuda is one country.SIMON: Yeah. Well, we have Antigua and Barbuda (ph).GURIAN: Paddy keeps hundreds of years of historical documents and books and newspapers about both islands in his lawn mower repair shop in Antigua in these dusty stacks on the floor.SIMON: This is a chronicle of Barbuda.GONZALEZ: And Paddy says the great thing about Barbuda is that if you're rich and powerful and you have a lot of money and you want 2 acres of land to build on, you get it for free. But also...SIMON: If that little boy, that fisher boy, that man who can't write his name want the same amount of land to do a project, he gets it. You can't go better than that, can't go better than that (ph).GURIAN: We wanted to talk to Paddy because he knows how Barbuda got this special land arrangement.SIMON: Brother and sister, believe you me, yeah?GONZALEZ: All right. Once upon a time, no one lived on Barbuda. Even when the Caribbean was all Indigenous populations, they would just come to Barbuda to hunt and fish and then go back to the other islands they lived on. Barbuda was never inhabited.GURIAN: And then during the 1600s, colonization times, this English guy, Christopher Codrington, comes along and says, I have a plan for that island.SIMON: Oh, yeah. Codrington was a slave master.GURIAN: He leases the whole island from the king of England.SIMON: And his payment was a fat sheep.GURIAN: One fat sheep.GONZALEZ: It was 1685.SIMON: He had his slaves over there, and it was like a supply.GONZALEZ: Like a supply island, because Codrington had all these sugar plantations in Antigua, but the soil in Barbuda was too shallow and too thin to grow sugar. So Codrington sent enslaved people to Barbuda to grow food and raise livestock to supply people in Antigua - workers in Antigua.SIMON: He used to supply Antigua, his estate, with Barbuda products, like meat, fish, cocoplum.GONZALEZ: Cocoplum - what is that?SIMON: It's like a marshmallow - soft like a marshmallow. Nice, nice stuff. And melon and pumpkin and things like that.GONZALEZ: All using slave labor?SIMON: Yes, yes, slave labor. But he only had, like, 500 slaves over there.GURIAN: And Antigua and Barbuda are, like, two hours away from each other by ferry today, so pretty far away from each other back then.SIMON: So right away, the manager realized he couldn't swim from Barbuda to Antigua, so he had to live with them.GONZALEZ: The whole island was made up of 500 enslaved people at its peak and one white manager and his family, sometimes maybe no more than a handful of other white workers, too. So schools and churches and all the other things that Antigua had, they didn't really get built in Barbuda because there were no white people.GURIAN: And for almost two centuries, a bunch of different Codringtons run Barbuda this way. Slavery is abolished in 1834, but that doesn't actually change anything for several more decades.GONZALEZ: Eventually, the Codringtons leave. Their lease expires. And when they leave, there are no white people left - just formerly enslaved people. So they stayed.SIMON: They become their living (ph). They don't know anything else. It's all right, no problem. You left. There they are. They just keep living. So the people are left alone, so they live happy. So they live.GONZALEZ: And as they're there living, no one ever came up and said, wait; but you need a property title. Technically, the king of England had claimed the land and considered the people of Barbuda tenants, but there's no evidence that anyone, like, paid rent or anything like that. So for more than a hundred years, people on this island were pretty much left alone to use the land however they wanted. And they never took on a formal property rights system.GURIAN: And people didn't really fight over land either - like, who gets what - because there was plenty of it - 62 square miles, most of it undeveloped, and not that many people. In 1981, Antigua and Barbuda gain their independence and become one country with one prime minister. Around that time, they set up a Barbuda Council kind of like a city council. When Barbudans want to build something, they check with them.GONZALEZ: And at some point, the council does start leasing land to developers. There are a few beachfront hotels and resorts on the island. Princess Diana used to vacation here. But Barbudans never sold the land; they just rented it out to whoever they wanted. And then in 2007, Barbudans get this special informal land system formalized into law. Parliament passes the Barbuda Land Act, which says, yes, Barbudans, you now officially own the land in common. And it stays this way until 2017, when a hurricane hits - Hurricane Irma.GURIAN: It's September 6, 2 a.m., dark out.JOHN: The wind started to pick up.GURIAN: This is Hey Gal again - Natalia.JOHN: So the water started to come in - like, rush in.GONZALEZ: Not so much rain, but water from the sea.JOHN: Seawater, yes. It was a lot of water.GONZALEZ: And, remember; Barbuda - flat as a penny.JOHN: A lot of wind (imitating wind sound). And then you just see the window started to burst, the doors - bash, you know? And it just started to burst windows. It just started to break lampposts. We could see things flying. So we were all in one room just praying for it to - until the eye passed.GONZALEZ: Eye of the hurricane.JOHN: Hurricane, yes. That is the calm, they say.GONZALEZ: Almost all the buildings on Barbuda were damaged, including Natalia's house.GURIAN: Just one room was left standing - a bedroom.JOHN: Everything fell in - everything inside - the beds, the chairs just smashed in.GONZALEZ: All over the island, just shells of buildings were left - no doors, no roofs, open to the sky. Barbudans were totally exposed. And then they heard another hurricane was coming in three days - Hurricane Jose.GURIAN: And the prime minister, who, remember, lives in Antigua - he doesn't really come to Barbuda. Antiguans rarely do. He does this kind of dramatic thing. He gets a private helicopter, takes himself and a cameraman to Barbuda, lands, jumps on the bed of a pickup truck and makes a big announcement.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)PRIME MINISTER GASTON BROWNE: The entire country has been decimated. I have never seen anything like this before.GONZALEZ: He orders a mandatory evacuation of the island. The military shows up.JOHN: They were going around knocking. If they see you on the road, they tell you. They were driving in a vehicle and just stop you and tell you, you know, hey, you got to go - you know, issuing a mandatory evacuation because of the other storm that's coming, and it's not safe.GONZALEZ: And people on Barbuda are like, wait; everyone? The entire island is being evacuated,JOHN: Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. It feels a little weird, you know, leaving everybody off of Barbuda. Really?GONZALEZ: Really?GURIAN: But also, people were scared. Natalia packs a bag.JOHN: I was expecting to come back maybe two days after if it was safe, so I had one bag with maybe about two clothes - two pair of clothes. And we came off the boat. Everybody was just holding us and all crying and hugging and asking about their family, you know, who we left over there, what's going on.GURIAN: Barbudans were sent to shelters. Some went with family in Antigua. But actually, the second hurricane never hit. It ended up turning out to sea.GONZALEZ: So everyone is like, OK, we're going to go back now. The prime minister calls all Barbudans to a meeting at some university in Antigua. Like, every Barbudan come to this meeting - a little weird.JOHN: Actually, yeah, I was happy because I thought that, you know, it was something to tell us, hey, you're going back home, you know, tomorrow (laughter).GURIAN: So you were there, all of you from Barbuda, in this room. And the prime minister is there in the room with you.JOHN: Just there waiting to hear, you can go back home.GONZALEZ: And what did you hear instead?JOHN: Instead, we heard, Barbuda is not safe. Barbuda is stink. Barbuda is infested with dead animal - you know, dead animals, mosquitoes - different from how we left it, but - sorry.GURIAN: That's OK.JOHN: Sorry. It was scary. I would say it was scary. I just wanted to come back home.GURIAN: The prime minister had issued a state of emergency, says no one can go back. It's not safe. They could take day trips to, like, clean out the water and mold from their homes, take the now-rotten food out of the fridge - things like that. But they couldn't stay there overnight.GONZALEZ: And that's when the prime minister starts talking about this whole communal land thing.BROWNE: The truth is the Barbudans have always carried this myth for perhaps maybe a couple hundred years that they own the land on Barbuda. So this myth of collective ownership is not true.(SOUNDBITE OF CARL HARMS' "A PUZZLING CASE")GONZALEZ: After the break, capitalism creeps into Barbuda - you know, while no one's there.GURIAN: Eventually, Barbudans are allowed to move back to the island, but most of it has been destroyed.GONZALEZ: The prime minister - the guy who flew in on a helicopter - he's still the prime minister today, Gaston Browne. We met him at his office in Antigua. And he said that when the storm hit in 2017, he started thinking about how Barbuda was going to rebuild, where the money was going to come from.GURIAN: And he focuses on Barbuda's most obvious asset - the land.BROWNE: It is not the responsibility of the government of Antigua and Barbuda or any foreign government or agency to rebuild the individual's home. The individual has to take responsibility.GONZALEZ: He tells Barbudans, you know that lot you've already been living on for free all these years? New plan - we're going to sell it to you for $1 Eastern Caribbean - about 37 cents U.S. And now - now you'll have a title. And titles open up all these opportunities. You can take a title to a bank.BROWNE: If the individual is going to take responsibility and would want to get a mortgage or a short-term loan to rebuild or to repair his or her home, he would require ownership. So it was a sensible thing to do to help them to unlock capital so that they could rebuild.GONZALEZ: Meaning that they could go to the bank with their title in their hands and say, use my property value as collateral to give me a loan for...BROWNE: One dollar.GONZALEZ: ...For one dollar.GURIAN: Which sounds a little strange to many Barbudans. They're like, hold on; your rebuilding plan is to sell us the land we already own for $1 each?GONZALEZ: And he's like, yeah, because this whole communal land thing, I think it's just a big misunderstanding, a myth.BROWNE: In the 1700s, 1800s, Barbudans carrying that type of myth - one could empathize with them as individuals who were illiterate. Today, in the 21st century, it is unconscionable, inconceivable that any educated person could believe in that myth today. It is a form of ignorance that has to be broken.GONZALEZ: You say that Barbudans have been thinking that they own the land and that it is a myth that they own the land. But there is a law that Parliament - the Antiguan and Barbudan government passed that says Barbudans own the land. Don't you have the communal land act (ph)?BROWNE: That is exactly what I'm coming to now.GONZALEZ: OK. So I just want to - like, I just want to read the...BROWNE: I'm familiar, yeah.GONZALEZ: The first sentence says, the Barbuda Land Act 2007, an act to confirm that all land in Barbuda is owned in common by the people of Barbuda. So it is a law passed by Parliament, right?BROWNE: Right. So it was a dangling piece of legislation that had no legal effect.GONZALEZ: It was enough of a law that he amended it several times. And - right? - you can't amend a law if it's not technically a law, but OK. He says it's an unconstitutional law. So months after the hurricane, he repeals it.BROWNE: It was a law that violated the constitution of the country and a law that had sought to give credence to a long-standing myth.GONZALEZ: But this is your opinion, right? Because the courts haven't decided - determined that it was unconstitutional.BROWNE: That's right.GONZALEZ: OK, yeah. That's all I'm talking about.BROWNE: What I'm saying to you - the probability of success is zilch, nil, zero.GURIAN: Barbudans are challenging this whole thing in court. It'll likely go to their version of the Supreme Court. But for now, under the prime minister's new plan, communal land is out, property titles are in. He says now Barbudans can have actual legally binding titles to whatever plot of land they had been living on.GONZALEZ: But just that plot, though. The rest of the island, which is about 90% of the island, that'd be open to foreign investment and development. The prime minister wants Barbuda to become a big vacation spot. And remember that council - the Barbuda Council that has approved or rejected all the development projects in the past? They lose the power to do that.BROWNE: That type of property rights system is quintessential to the advancement of a country and the advancement of a people.GURIAN: Obviously, property rights are basically the foundation of a capitalist economy. Owning things - like, legally proving you own something - that's really important. The logic is it gives people an incentive to invest in their future without worrying someone else is going to take their stuff away. It helps build wealth.GONZALEZ: And we've talked about the power of property rights before on PLANET MONEY. We did a whole episode on this famous economist named Hernando de Soto. He wrote about an invisible law that traps people in poverty. And he wrote that giving people property titles, ownership to their homes and land, would help lift people out of poverty - that now they could go to the bank and take out loans against their property.LIZ ALDEN WILY: Classical property economics suggests that this will open everything up. You'll be able to get bank loans, and your life will be better, et cetera.GURIAN: Liz Alden Wily is a political economist specializing in land rights at the Leiden Law School in the Netherlands. She studies different property rights systems around the world. And she says having a property title - it gives you some protection. But she also says economists have found one big thing missing from de Soto's theory, which is that just having a title probably is not going to persuade a bank to give you a loan.WILY: They would want to see, first and foremost, proof, evidence that you will be able to repay that loan.GONZALEZ: A salary - steady income. That's what banks want to see. And Liz says that in a place like Barbuda where people don't have reliable incomes, titles alone won't make much of a difference.S