Slayers Science 101: Talking Rocks
Okay, accioharoā has availed me of my niche Geology nerd powers to do some SCIENCE for the sake of figuring out some sweet Zelgadis rock info.
First letās start with the basics.Ā
The three known elements that went into the form that Rezo cursed Zel with are the following: human!Zel, brau demon, and rock golem.
As you can see- the brau demon gave Zel a few important traits- the pointed ears, the blue skin and the wire hair. Obviously, Zel kept his human parts on the inside, giving the only visible trait of the rock golem those little rocks that poke out of Zelās skin.
Okay, but what are those rocks?Ā
Well first letās think about rock golems. Rock golems are made out of the material a spellcaster has available (see some of Nagaās handiwork for this). This means that the majority of rock golems are going to be made out of the extrusive rocks that make up the continentās crust. Some of these likely contenders are rocks called Granite, Andesite and Basalt.
Andesite is kind of a midpoint between the other two. It forms at subductionĀ zones - when two tectonic plates crash into each other and one gets shoved under the other. Thatās part of why Andesite represents the dominant rock type in island arcs.
But hereās our continent- and thereās maybe one little island? This is definitely more of a peninsula than an island arc. And going deeper into the continentās history we find that thereās been some major changes since the beginning.
This is the Sleeping Dragon continent before the Shinma War. Obviously this looks nothing like the world we have in-series because this is back when the big shots were fighting it out.Ā The force of power used by both Ceifeed and Shabranidgu in the war was so great, that it destroyed more than half of the original continent, leaving us with the following:
See that area in the middle/upper right hand corner? Thatās our peninsula from the first image. The rest of the world is outside the barrier and not accessible until post-Phibrizzo.Ā
Thatās it. So, obviously no island arcs here. Or subduction zones, being as that giant sea in the middle was battle-made and thatās the main coastline for our series.Ā
So, Andesite is out. Leaving us with the two usual components of Earthās crust- Granite and Basalt.
So Granite is pretty cool and all, but thereās a lot of reasons why it just doesnāt cut it for our rock golems. First- byĀ definition, granite is an igneous rock with at least 20% quartz. What that means to us is that thereās a minimum amount of quartz and quartz isā¦well kind of shiny. Quartz also breaks a certain way called conchoidal fracture that gives it that distinct look you see above- as if someone has scooped out pieces of the rock. Which- well, look back up at the picture of Zelās hand and the rocks there. Do they look like that? Nope, they donāt. They also donāt have those visible specks that granite has (called its coarse grained matrix).
Okay, so Granite really isnāt working out for us. Letās look at Basalt.
First where do we find Basalt? Well, mostly the ocean floor. Which doesnāt sound like a good place for rock golems. But they also happen due to Flood Basalt, which can happen due to ancient volcanic activity.Ā
This is theĀ British Tertiary Volcanic Province. As you might know, there are no active volcanoes in Great Britain today, but there were a long time ago. In these situationsĀ large igneous provincesĀ form due to a hot spot or mantle plume making a BIG explosion. And you know- magical chaos between dark lords might just set off such a thing, being as this is often tied to ancient extinction events and they kinda blew out the entire middle continent. This explosion results a large flow of basaltic lava over the land in a flood, leaving behind things like:Ā
This is Giantās Causeway in Northern Ireland. And these are the lovely basalt columns that the ancient volcano left behind here and places throughout the world.Ā These structures are predominantly hexagonal in cross-section, but polygons with three to twelve or more sides can be observed. The size of the columns depends loosely on the rate of cooling; very rapid cooling may result in very small (<1 cm diameter) columns, while slow cooling is more likely to produce large columns.
And wellā¦where I have I seen rocks like this before?
Hmm. And if we look even closer weāll see that there are definitely some polygons with three to twelve sides clustered together on a certain someoneās face:
Basalt, along with coming in the primary colors of Zelās rocks (gray/dark gray) could have easily formed in the peninsula the series takes place in due to fallout from the Shinma war.And sometimes when it forms, it results in polygonal shapes that are clustered together with small crevices between them. Unlike Granite, Basalt is a fine grained rock giving us the solid as opposed to speckled look. And unlike both Granite and Andesite, Basalt is a tough density rock (itās average beingĀ 3.0 gm/cm3 as opposed to 2.5-2.8 for the others). And yeah, if I was casting a spell to use rock for a golem Iād use strongest one around.Ā
So- long story short, the rocks that make up the small gray extrusions on Zelās face is probably Basalt. Why? Because science.
