I just remembered something from my natural sciences class in elementary school; Endorheic basins. Bodies of water that are closed off from the ocean, in which all the water that gets there stays there until it gets released by either evaporation or infiltration. They usually occur in hot desert areas. As shown in furiosa, a river passed through the canyon in which the Vuvalini lived. And since Mad Max is set in the Australian outback and the oceans dried up, it can only be part of an endorheic basin, as it can't get to any bigger body of water.
The loss of water from endorheic basins causes the concentration of salt and other minerals, which makes the water and soil turn "sour" just what the remaining Vuvalini said that happened to the Green Place. They probably suffered a draught at some point, which caused the water to evaporate, becoming too saline to plant anything, and causing the soil to become saline as well.
The aquifer was part of what’s known as the Great Artesian Basin
Half the reason it went “sour” was because of the Citadel. All the water Joe was pumping was coming from the same aquifer. He sucked the fresh water out of it and interrupted the cycle by storing it inside his reservoir
If it was just the Vulvalini using it, it would have lasted
they became addicted to water, and began to resent its absence
It's true. He was just trying to save them.
Those bloody hippies were the real villains all along!
Joe sucking up too much of the water from the basin is a good movie twist but we probably can’t call it the Great Artesian Basin. Like the mountain range shown in the map opening sequence of Furiosa isn’t really there, it’d have to be a fictional basin or fictional version of the Great Artesian Basin. Because the real Great Artesian Basin is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, extending over 1,700,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi) and is estimated to contain 64,900 cubic kilometres (15,600 cubic miles) of groundwater. Joe couldn’t use it all up if he lived a thousand years
Joe sucking up all the water in Australia through the Citadel is not something that would realistically happen, agreed.
But it looks to me like they were adding to real Australia rather than remodeling it completely, so the original real locations are still there, except enhanced with whatever George felt was necessary.
In the game, the S/SW 1/3 the map is coastal plains created when the oceans dried up. There's a diagonal mountain range that's actually the edge of the inner coastal plateau.yoi can see an offshore drilling platform, a lighthouse, and a suspension bridge. Gastown is there in the North, probably the nearest refinery to the port and a days drive going full tilt. We know that the citadel and bullettown exist further north as the other two points on an irregular triangle, each roughly a days ride apart.
It's possible the green place was somewhere that's currently below sea level. Their aquifer could have been created by runoff from the artisan basin, through a fissure that's since collapsed and sealed. If the citadel is North West of Gastown, the green place would be within my speculative zone. There's even a mountain range on the game map that could be transposed to the map of furiosa.
https://preview.redd.it/nb0s978ale6g1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df322dfe27291c996d6411bb11bdf45ff320d7f5
Given the scale of Australia and the size of the Great Artesian Basin - there's no way the Citadel had caused the Green Place to dry up.
The overall climate change caused it.
The Basin isn’t one continuous water source. There are smaller “lakes” within the boundary that are isolated from the larger body of water
Sure, climate change was a large contributor, but Joe’s actions would have been the tipping point. Taking away water and breaking the cycle would destroy it faster than climate change on its own
If it's a complex and nuanced network of smaller lakes then it makes it even less probable the Citadel were connected to the Green Place.
That’s a great observation! It reminds me of what happened to the Salton Sea in California. Then I imagine how much worse it would be if you throw in a ton of contamination from nuclear radiation over time. Yikes.
Wait so potential fertile land has the nutrients evaporate and it’s stupid land
The nutrients don’t evaporate, but salts build up to the point that things can’t grow there anymore.
When there is a lot of water, think of it as 1000 water, 10 salt. Fine, things can grow there. Then it becomes 500:10, still ok, not as good… 100:10 not good…10:10 wasteland
In real life you can also have minerals like selenium build up and cause problems, not just salt.
Would that be similar to the Salton Sea in the USA?
Yes!
I wasn’t able to find the case study I remembered about the selenium build-up, but that might be it, thank you!
The nutrients need to be the right dilution to be useful.
The same way you can't plant something in a pot filled with only fertilizer.
What evaporated was part of the water, not the nutrients. Actually, nutrients and minerals would've been in higher concentration in the water in this case, which isn't good either. More doesn't equal better in all cases. Ecosystems can suffer from eutrophication if they have nutrients in too high concentration.
Sandstorms bring the toxic things/radiation, one or few of them probably "killed" the Green Place
Not necessarily. The Vuvalini never mention that the cause were the storms, and I doubt that the storms could've gotten any worse during the ten years or so which Furiosa was gone.
The only sandstorm that we see in the movie happens before they cross the mountain passage, which could suggest those sort of phenomenon occurs there and not elsewhere. And considering that the green land had trees and plants, the soil fixing of the area should have been good, stopping strong winds from carrying away the topsoil and difficulting the formation of Sandstorms.
Hey thanks for that absolute fucking nerd information, it has nurtured my ADHD
Read about the Aral Sea or Tulare Lake
Or the Salton sea
Sounds exactly like what happened
The best thing about most fans of the Mad Maxiverse is that no one gives a shit.
No one gives a shit about canon, or continuity, or explanations.
It just fucking rocks, nuff said.
Hell yeah. Let's focus on telling a good stories. Coherence died when the nukes fell.
How did the canyon disappear?
It probably was a bit to the north. The river must flow to lower land, which should be the swamp the war rig passes through