New planet on the horizon

The thread on planets and moons has been fascinating.  The remark
about a moonless planet got me to thinking, so I've decided to create
my own planet.  Thank you, Roger, for that great World Builders site.

The planet has no moon.

The planet's axis is perpendicular to the orbit.

The orbit is elliptical with aphelion considerably farther than
perihelion.  This will give a semblance of seasons.

The only other planet in the system is closer to the yellow primary
(G2) and its orbit is not on the same plane as my planet.  Is this
possible?

Other details (distance from primary, density, etc.) will be worked
out. It will probably be a little bit larger than the earth.

Almost half the surface is covered by an ocean.  There are no islands.

The other half is covered by one big continent.

The large unobstructed ocean is the source of violent storms several
times a year.

Both northern and southern hemispheres experience spectacular auroras.

Down the center of the ocean is the volcanic ridge which has pushed
all the land masses into one.

There is both an arctic and an antarctic ice cap.

Along either equatorial coast is a coral reef.  There are a few
islands formed by the reef which are visible from the coast.

The continual subduction has generated extremely high mountains on
both coasts of the ocean.

The tops of the mountains are snow-covered all year long.

The height of the mountains prevents rain from falling on the
interior of the continent so it is desert.

The two mountain ranges are on the shore line at the polar ends but
curve inland so that, at the equator, they are several hundred miles
from the shore.  These coastal zones are the only inhabitable land on
the planet.

Matching features on each shore line show that the two shore lines
were once joined.

The flora consists of equatorial jungle at the equator becoming
deciduous forests in the temperate zones and tundra in the polar
regions, with similar zones up the mountains.

There are many short rivers flowing down from the mountains to the
ocean.

Species of flora and fauna will be worked out in time.  The one major
difference is that evolution did not produce mammals (I can live on a
planet without a moon, but doubt that I could on a planet without ice
cream!).  Various species of birds (flighted and flightless) occupy
the various niches of mammals.

The inhabitants are Terrans descended from a malfunctioning space
ship.  Each of the two escape pods landed on different sides of the
ocean.  The two groups lost contact and have evolved different
societies.

Because of the desert, the ice caps and the ocean there has not been
any contact between the two groups.

This will be a chance for me to make an attempt at creating an
agglutinative conlang.

And comments, suggestions or questions are welcome.

Charlie

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