Natural history of the Aurlûnor Velande

The oldest rocks in Aurlûnor today are bedrocks laid down during the Shahban Period, at least 4 billion years ago. The rest of what is termed the Momaganic Era in Aurlûnoran geology texts is relatively unexplored as of present; some ancient banded iron deposits dating to the Transplutolithic Period are known from far below the northeastern part of the country.

Promesolithic Progress
The prehistory of Aurlûnor is poorly known until about 400 million years ago. At this time (specifically the late Tudenanian), early plants began colonizing land; one of the most common early plants was a leafless, non-vascular moss known as Pangninia eoflora, named after the village it was found in. Shortly thereafter, legged fish and primitive amphibians appeared on land, possibly to hunt the insects that preceded them.

The prehistoric landscape of southwestern Syltör about 300 million years ago was once very swampy, as indicated by extensive mudstone and coal deposits located around the region. The various fossil tetrapods of this ancient era have been assumed to be large amphibians, reptiles, something intermediate between the two, or the remains of the dragons known throughout Aurlûnoran mythology. Today their remains are most commonly found in the deserts of Sharla and Erume provinces, as well as in the Sokalis Coal Measures of what is now Nir. It is through the coal swamps that much of the iron and coal mined today across the Velande was formed.

Early Neomesolithic Orogeny
Between 240 and 205 million years ago, during the Quintassic Period, a process of mountain-building known as the Sokalian Orogeny (named after the old Takumakken name for Hloamar) occurred from what is now south Vorosan up through the north of the country into Norfthorn. This mountain range would be known as the Melwende Shan. A large piece of subducted and partially molten crust is hypothesized to have been thrust upward from the mantle, forcing the mountains upward. It also displaced significant amounts of its own molten mass and existing magma, which was forced upward into the faults in the fractured rock that comprised the newly-formed mountains.

The displaced magma created the vast number of igneous plutons of varying composition- allowing for diorite, andesite, and granite to form under the Melwende Shan in close proximity. This variety of stone is used in building today. It also created an impermeable barrier between the water-saturated upper rock and soil of the Nir swamps and the old mudstone beneath, known as the Nir Aquifuge. This allowed the city of Helemar to become a mining town despite being located in a low-lying swamp.

Age of Reptiles
The Neomesolithic Era is often called the Age of Reptiles, as the largest vertebrates of that era were mostly reptiles like dinosaurs.

On the coast of the Lothranis Sea in Tacua, a receding coastline preserved the remains of several marine organisms- mostly mollusks, but also large vertebrates like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs as well as the occasional dinosaur like Dilophosaurus. The Ardol Formation would the most explored Lothranic-age rock unit in the country. In fact, the Lothranic Period itself is derived from the Ardol Formation and its well-known fossils (or at least the sea the Ardol Formation lies along).The Dracian record of Aurlûnor is also very well known; the upper Ardol extends into the earliest Dracian, where the small carnivorous Venetodon is known from. However, it is in the lands to the east, in the Sawiyah Formation (named after the Sawiyah Oasis) where some of the best Dracian fossil assemblages in the world are known. Here, the Sawiyah preserves erosion from the Melwende Shan extending a coastal floodplain outwards- a floodplain occupied by vast conifer forests and fern prairies, roamed by some of the largest dinosaurs known. Giant kolonopods like Ashuratitan, Diplodocus, Nashabetisaurus, and Brontosaurus all coexisted on these ancient savannahs.

The later Qalmanian and Iridaceous rock records are yet to be explored in Aurlûnor. However, they do exist in large numbers, and many fossils are still awaiting catalogue. It is known at least that one species of Manothronax stalked ancient Aurlûnor about 70 million years ago.

Epilithic Changes
By the middle Cuiciloan Period, about 50 million years ago, the Melwende Shan would be worn down through nearly 200 million years of weathering, creating a small band of floodplains that extended the coastline outwards into the Lothranis and Phagosian Seas. The prevailing climate was very cool and dry, and the mountains formed a rain shadow over the western half of the country. The east, however, had vast floodplains that extended to the northern shores of the Great Southern Ocean and Phagosian Sea. By the end of the erosion of the mountains though, the whole south of the region became covered in dense tropical forests.

The Fornois Ranges (Fornoisian: les Monts de Fornois), subdivided into the Northern Mountains (Monts del Nors), Morning Mountains (Monts del Mornan) and Mount Drelgaon (Mont Drelgaon), located in the provinces of Alvada and Veassda, are regarded as the last standing remains of the Melwende Shan. The dry climate persisted there longer, and as a result that region is more montane than the former southern stretch of the Melwende Shan. However, these mountains did accumulate much precipitation during the onset of the Regolithic ice ages, starting 3.5 million years ago, and their glaciers did not recede until well after humans arrived in the region.