Volcanic activity on Dune

[Mordecai]

It strikes me that all the discovered planets (in real life) that are as close to a star as Dune is have volcanic activity. Why is it that Arrakis has all the elements of a normal, functioning planetoid except for tectonics of any sort?

[quoudam72]

When you say tectonics you are speaking on the forces that produce the deformation of the crust of Arrakis? That would be the geological structural features as a whole correct? All of that would include Arrakis' diastrophism (plateaus, mountains, folds of strata and faults. Ocean basins would also be included but we know that Arrakis does not have an ocean). Maybe Arrakis was once volcanic millions of years ago. Only Liet-Kynes would know for sure.

[ordos45]

Now you will probably kill me but in the prequels on the Arrakis map is extinct volcanoes.  Now I'm also sure Pardot Kynes would know as well.  Just please lets not make it a tank arguement in length.

[quoudam72]

I knew there was some type of evidence to support what we are disscussing. I just wasn't sure where it was located. You know everything about Dune says that it once had volcanos. I just needed some type of proof. I'll need to go and look at those maps when I get a chance.

[nemafakei]

Depending on how far down the sand goes, tectonics may be in action, just very far down, and therefore unnoticed. Plus, it's surprising how much an atmosphere is critical to tectonics - Arrakis' lack of water makes it perfect for little tectonic activity; Venus has a lot of water and other stuff in the thick atmosphere, and this keeps heat in to fuel all the tectonics it has.

This could happen only if Dune was a very old planet... but "God created Arrakis to train the faithful" - was it one of the first planets made?

[quoudam72]

I'm not sure about the "first planets made" theroy but I think Arrakis could be a very old planet in it's star system.

[nemafakei]

The theory was baseless conjecture, just a suggestion. But it does need to be much older than earth or any of the ones we know.

[exatreide]

Why must it be older then Earth? it can be the same age. no one has any prof that it is older than earth

[nemafakei]

Older than Earth it must be if the sand is deep enough to allow totally surface-dormant tectonics; erosion on such a scale takes some time, even in astrophysical terms.

[quoudam72]

I would have to agree with Nema. The other factor would of course be the evoultion of the Worm. They would have to be unmolested by human civilization for quite some time. I mean no industral civilization or any other large scale human development (as we can see on Arrakis). The Freman live with the Worm and he controls the enviroment in which it shares with the Freman. There is no proof (the age of Arrakis) this is only an educated guess and a suggestion to the subject.

[exatreide]

What do you mean the erosion? In Haritics of dune. Dune is back to being a desert. thats only a few thousand years after letto the II death.

[quoudam72]

Ex that's the future of Arrakis and you are right. We are talking about the events that shaped Arrakis the forming of the planet. That is what Nema is refering to when he mentions erosion (i.e. glaciers or U-shaped valleys) and the surface dormant-tectontics. These events would have happened over a very long period of time.

[alphabeta4000]

It is important to also realise that in the dune books at one stage leto 2 says the sandtrout were introduced to set up for the sandworms.

[nemafakei]

Assuming tectonics and deep sand conjectures are OK,

Desert predated life on Arrakis.

And there might have been a lot more water in the atmosphere than now.

Then (much later) limited photosynthetic life developed, and took up most of this water, living in newly reclaimed areas, fertile only on the surface above the deep sand.

Sandtrout evolved, and nicked all the water, and all was desert again.

This allowed the coming of the worms and the spice.

Then humans came along.

I think.

[exatreide]

I dont think the sandtrout evovled there. I am guessing they were either intraduced or crshed on the planet from asteriod. Think about it. A  asteriod could have done what happend to dune. Say there was life on the planet and booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom a asteriod hits. Asteriod of such a size that it wipes out most of the life on the planet. the sandtroat were on the asteriod and some how survived.  a nice place to evlove becouse most of the life on planet was either dead or dieing.

[thomas]

if the lackof water = no volcanos then how can arrakis have sand because sand is made by rock grinding into each other in a rive, lake, ocean

[nemafakei]

Not necessarily; the heating and cooling of rock on a vast scale (Day and night on arrakis) can smash up rock into sand and thus create a desert.

Ex: Wherever the sandtrout come from, it works.

[Digital Guerrilla]

Sandtrout from an asteriod? That sounds far fetched but anything could have happened although I prefer to believe that the sandtrout evolved on the planet Arrakis itself and not from another source (IMHO). You know what would really be interesting is if Liet Kynes had notes and research that he never gave to the Imperium and the Freman still have this reasearch in their possession about the history of Arrakis as a planet.

[nemafakei]

Evolution on Arrakis is far more feasable - and an asteroid almost certainly not work without a REALLY big occurence of chaos theory - and a plant on which sandtrout evloved in the first place. Unless Ex was thinking they just popped out of the VERY thin air in space.

[quoudam72]

Asteroid? Remember "the worm is the spice the spice is the worm" whatever properties are in the organtic make-up of the spice you'll find some answers to the evolution questions about Arrakis atleast with the worms.

[Mordecai]

Clearly Arrakis should be seen as a "dead" planet - it must be ancient (for a planet) for all the factors involved to occur. The formation of the deserts must have taken an exceptionally long time, and since the sandworms rely upon the sand for their existence they must have evolved from some sort of earthworm over a few million years after the desertification process. What do sandworms eat - each other and sandtrout? It seems implausible that something as large and as long-lived as Shai-Hulud can exist without wiping out everything living within a few hundred square miles in one year. What do Sandtrout feed on? There would be no insects or easily accessible plankton (or the equivalent) under the sands, and there are obviously nowhere near enough plants for a herbiverous lifestyle, either. Of course, being fiction it is not surprising that it does not stand up to scrutiny, but it does seem an incredible idea. Such an ecosystem, if established, would last indefinitely.

Mordecai

[dportela]

Mordecai, read Appendix I to Dune, where Herbert describes the ecology of Arrakis. It answers all those questions.

Also, ExAtreides as for the Asteroid Theory, check this out, in Dune [page 73 of my PDF, too lazy to look it up in the book right now]:

The Duke glanced down to the left at the broken landscape of the Shield Wall--chasms of tortured rock, patches of yellow-brown crossed by black lines of fault shattering. It was as though someone had dropped this ground from space and left it where it smashed.

[bold emphasis mine]

[nemafakei]

"Of course, being fiction it is not surprising that it does not stand up to scrutiny" - But it does stand up - you have merely raised questions hast can be solved.

[Mordecai]

Not really. There are dozens of points that can be raised if yopu look hard enough, but that is not the point. In essence, Dune is about magic - if that is not a good description of the multitudinous effects of using spice, I do not know what is. The basis of the 'Duniverse' is not technology but a mysterious substance no-one seems to understand. Another point: with nearly no plants, how is the oxygen content of Arrakis' atmosphere maintained?

[Vanguard3000]

Kynes, during his research, realized that, because of chemical reacions in their stomachs, the worms create a very large percentage of the planet's oxygen.  I assume that sand-plankton stuff that the worms eat generate quite a bit too.  It says this in one of the appendicies of Dune.