Umbral Jungle

Important

This article is considered Old and will eventually be deleted or completely changed because it isn't at the standard I want. It is being left up for now either because the new article isn't ready, or this article was a challenge entry.

Describe a geographic location beneath the surface - what can you find lurking there?

(Work in progress)

In the center of the Grekil Continent in the far northern latitudes, lay one of the most remote places on the planet. The Grekil Continent is relatively dormant as far as volcanism goes. As a continental plate, it hardly moves. Despite this most of the continent was formed of volcanism, from hotspots in the mantle. some of the largest volcanic explosions in Collena's history happened on this continent.

Many Supervolcanoes are also failed ones, where the magma chamber emptied and imploded, but never exploded, leaving vast areas of land sitting well below sea level. Despite the high latitude, these sunken areas were close enough to mantle plumes that they stayed rather hot, filled with volcanic springs, occasionally lava flows.

Life that evolved in these warmer areas were vastly different than the life above the ground on the icy tundra. These areas are forever humid, and greatly resembled the jungles from the equator as well. Each jungle is wholly unique in its biodiversity. They all evolved separately from each other, and some of the most unique lifeforms on collena can be found here, isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years at a time.

One of the largest of these Jungles is the Umbral Jungle, a large rainforest sitting 3km below sea level, where the temperatures are always in excess of 30°C. It has an area of 1,200 km² exposed to the surface, but there are thousands of miles of large caverns and extinct lava tubes reaching far underground. These extinct lava tubes and caverns have even stranger forms of life.

Several fruits discovered in the Jungle are now rather common in Regalti cuisine, including Helioberries and Umbra Fruits. As far as animals go, the Umbral Jungle has flying amphibians and flightless predatory birds. There's also herds of large horned rodents that graze on the jungle floor, often attracted by the sweet scents of the fruits.

One of the more important animals discovered here are the Turasil spiders. They are a 'social' species that builds large city-like nests on the cliffs around the jungle. Their silk has been chemically reproduced and used in a number of industrial applications, including the Geostationary tethers around Collena that the Space Elevators are built on.

Deeper in the Jungle in the lava tubes, the plants give way to fungi and rather strange looking animals that look completely alien by comparison to the animals closer to the surface. These are completely unexplored past a few kilometers, though many hundreds of unique species have been described from just these areas.

It is estimated that around half of all animal species that live in the jungle have yet to be discovered. For example, most species of arthropod haven't even been described yet or classified. And while there exists dozens of species of Helioberries in the Jungle, all breeds and varieties of the fruit cultivated on Collena are from a single species.

Type

Volcano

Subtype
Jungle
Area
1,200 km² exposed to surface
10,000 km² total estimated
Elevation
3km below sea level
Temperature Range
30°C - 55°C

Estmated Biodiversity
1,200 species of animals (discovered)

(12,000 undiscovered)

800 species of plants (discovered)

(28,000 undiscovered)

1,340 species of Fungi (discovered)

(56,000 undiscovered)