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This is the map of our Permian from 300 to 252 million years ago:

enter image description here

As you can see, (nearly) all of the continents had joined together to create one massive landmass called Pangaea. To the sharp eye, there was only one major mountain range at the time.

Now this is the map of a Permian from an alternate Earth, from 250 to 200 million years ago:

enter image description here

The brown lines presented in the map are mountain ranges varying in height above sea level from 23,000 feet to 33,500 feet. The orange arrows are the directions in which the landmasses were moving which resulted in the mountain-building. The blue circle is, of course, the South Geographic Pole.

The simple questions are as follows:

  1. Where would the equator be in this map?
  2. Under an axial tilt shifting from 20 to 25 degrees every 61,500 years, would the arrangement of the continents result in an ice age?
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    $\begingroup$ Noting all the comments on @salmoncrusher’s answer, why don’t you just cut out the continants and arrange on a blank globe the way you want, rather than a flat map? That will avoid the projection problems and answer your question. $\endgroup$
    – JDługosz
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 21:00

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  1. The equator could be anywhere. As far as I know, it's not possible to look at a map of tectonic plate boundaries and determine where the equator is(although if you knew what type of projection this map is, it might be possible to determine).
  2. Ice ages are still not fully understood, even for earth, so for the purposes of world building, the answer is really whatever you want it to be. But since the axial tilt varies more than twice as much as earth's, and axial tilt of earth is a major factor in determining ice ages, I would imagine that this world would experience ice ages. Again, not sure the surface geography really has anything to do with it(and if it does, it's effect would be far too complicated to analyze for the purposes of this question).
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  • $\begingroup$ I don't understand how the first question could be so hard. Zero degrees is zero degrees. Surely the blue circle in the map can give you SOME clue. $\endgroup$
    – JohnWDailey
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 13:58
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    $\begingroup$ @JohnWDailey, Earth is a geoid, very approximately a sphere. Your second map specifies where the south pole of you alternate earth lies, but it does not specify which map projection you used to transform the sphere to a flat picture. This makes the question of the equator impossible to answer. $\endgroup$
    – o.m.
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 14:35
  • $\begingroup$ I still don't see what the big deal is. Projection doesn't matter, so long as the geographic pole is unchangeable. $\endgroup$
    – JohnWDailey
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 14:57
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    $\begingroup$ Suppose I mark the bottom of an orange with a sharpie, then I peel the orange and lay the peel out flat, so that the sharpie mark is approximately in the middle. Can you tell me where the equator is? Yes, by refolding the orange peel into a sphere. Now imagine that you try to do this, and it folds back up into a cylinder instead(like a rug). In this case, you unfolded the orange according to a Mercator projection(not possible in real life of course). Unless the type of projection is known, I can't just re-fold the orange. $\endgroup$
    – Salmoncrusher
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 15:36
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    $\begingroup$ This is the kind of thing that's really hard to put in words, and you kind of have to see it for yourself.Here's a relevant xkcd, and here's the wikipedia on map projections. $\endgroup$
    – Salmoncrusher
    Commented Sep 6, 2016 at 20:43

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