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[QuantumSawdust]

have sinkholes been mentioned?  I think they'd be a better emergent feature than hard coded though

Nothing too specific.
Having emergent 'unique' features would be pretty awesome, but some amount of it is going to have to hard-coded to make them interesting enough. Improved sand dynamics would certainly be most what is needed though. Just some sand-dwelling creatures to make it all more interesting and interactive with the rest of the environment.

[G-Flex]

Quicksand in deserts, or wet marsh biomes. Dwarves or animals who step over it will sink a few z-levels and suffocate.

For what it's worth, actual quicksand is not nearly that deadly. It's a bitch, but you aren't going to die by stepping in it. Generally-speaking, you're lighter than the stuff, so you won't sink nearly up to your head. Other animals (ones on four legs?) might not be QUITE as lucky, especially if they panic.

There's also "dry quicksand" which is sort of apocryphal but apparently does exist, and has a better chance of killing you, and even sucking in vehicles.

[Duke 2.0]

Quicksand in deserts, or wet marsh biomes. Dwarves or animals who step over it will sink a few z-levels and suffocate.

For what it's worth, actual quicksand is not nearly that deadly. It's a bitch, but you aren't going to die by stepping in it. Generally-speaking, you're lighter than the stuff, so you won't sink nearly up to your head. Other animals (ones on four legs?) might not be QUITE as lucky, especially if they panic.

There's also "dry quicksand" which is sort of apocryphal but apparently does exist, and has a better chance of killing you, and even sucking in vehicles.

Indeed. Sand itself is not much to be worried about.
 Mud is dangerous. There are some places in Africa where a thin crust of dried mud covers a deep pit of the stuff. They usually appear on the bottoms of dried lakes, where the sediment is the most fine.

 Of course, it usually does not drag people under. It just traps them long enough for the sun to kill 'em.

[Koboldbard]

How about some Ordenery, if interesting, geologic features.

Stuff like anticline and syncline folds, structural domes and basins.

Adding joints due to shifting rock would be cool to, esp if you know that you can find stuff like gold and silver and copper and zinc along them,

Faults that run through fortess would be both awesome and devistating if during an earthquake, half your fort slid one way, the other half moving in the opposite direction. If a cave-in kills your miner, a chunk of your dwarves might starve to death deep underground.

[DarkCloud]

When volcanoes are created it will be interesting if the magma flows harden into new stones, or igneous types of rocks that have to be hauled out of the dwarven tunnels so that the dwarves can work the stone again.

This would also add another dimension to the magma pipes to the exterior of the fort. Each time they explode, they add 1/4th of a Z level until the dwarves must mine their way out of the front door to the now-higher land surrounding their settlement.

additionally, the magma flow new rock/land will be volcanically fertile (I believe volcanic soil has more nutrients, correct?) which would encourage different types of plants to grow.

[Granite26]

Quicksand in deserts, or wet marsh biomes. Dwarves or animals who step over it will sink a few z-levels and suffocate.

For what it's worth, actual quicksand is not nearly that deadly. It's a bitch, but you aren't going to die by stepping in it. Generally-speaking, you're lighter than the stuff, so you won't sink nearly up to your head. Other animals (ones on four legs?) might not be QUITE as lucky, especially if they panic.

There's also "dry quicksand" which is sort of apocryphal but apparently does exist, and has a better chance of killing you, and even sucking in vehicles.

There's a good UD feature, Mud...  Just like the wet stone or a sinkhole, you hit a spot and all of a sudden your tunnel starts to fill with... gunk

[G-Flex]

Quicksand in deserts, or wet marsh biomes. Dwarves or animals who step over it will sink a few z-levels and suffocate.

For what it's worth, actual quicksand is not nearly that deadly. It's a bitch, but you aren't going to die by stepping in it. Generally-speaking, you're lighter than the stuff, so you won't sink nearly up to your head. Other animals (ones on four legs?) might not be QUITE as lucky, especially if they panic.

There's also "dry quicksand" which is sort of apocryphal but apparently does exist, and has a better chance of killing you, and even sucking in vehicles.

Indeed. Sand itself is not much to be worried about.
 Mud is dangerous. There are some places in Africa where a thin crust of dried mud covers a deep pit of the stuff. They usually appear on the bottoms of dried lakes, where the sediment is the most fine.

 Of course, it usually does not drag people under. It just traps them long enough for the sun to kill 'em.

Quicksand isn't just "sand itself" though. It is, for what it's worth, a fairly peculiar thing. Just not as deadly as people think. Dry quicksand is closer to "just sand" than regular quicksand is, and it's deadlier by far.

[Othob Rithol]

Folded Rock Strata and Volcanic eruptions already on list.

Quicksand came up before (I think) as was dismissed as "not underground" (I think). However, I'm adding a new entry to the water section for new mud flows, which by nature can simulate quicksand.

I'll also amend the fossil entry to express potential uses for the fossils.

Bottomless maps were already in (Deeper and Deeper) but was already commented upon as highly unlikely by Toady. Magma aquifers comes close to the idea of a mantle (a volcanic rock layer that generates magma instead of water). I thought of making an explicit "bottom most layers" note, but decided not to. I think it would be freaking awesome to discover that I had 2 z levels under the magma aquifer to turn into a noble "dying living complex".

On a personal note:

In a recent thread that included some nice discussion on variations of items on this list:

Those are good ideas for the underground diversity megathread: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=22308.0

Ohh my goodness... You know what... why don't I make a thread called "Dwarf Fortress Diversity thread" that way I can go on EVERYONE'S suggestions and tell them to put it there

Whoa... I have no Idea where that came from... especially since you didn't say "You should have posted it in the underground diversity thread" like some people have done...

Which somehow suggests I go around telling people they SHOULD have posted their ideas here in MY thread.

And just 33 hours earlier in the 195,623th Magic Thread:

Yeah this is kinda the suggestion boards... Toady doesn't have to pick one person's suggestion and ignore all others...

Toady can pick and chose, as well as not pick and chose, elements out of suggestions that he likes or even dislikes but feel is nessisary.

We don't need another magic thread because we would just be repeating.

So in conclusion, thank you Footkerchief for very politely advertising our great endeavor.

[DarkCloud]

Folded Rock Strata and Volcanic eruptions already on list.

True, but the suggestion that the volcanic detritus builds up to form a Z-layer that eventually fills the clear land in front of the fortress so it must be cooled, then dug through for the dwarves to access the outside has not been added.

Such a feature would create an interesting scenario where the dwarves wall themselves off from potential battles not by construction, but by manipulating the natural world.

They could also build up the land and have new "underground" areas as the volcanic areas build height due not only to volcanic eruptions, but magma flows from inside the fortress.

Additionally, tunnels in the fortress could fill as magma hardens and floes inside.

I enjoy the list.

~DC.

[TettyNullus]

Bottomless map might be pretty unlikely, but it'd be a very good way of expanding on the 'sandboxing' nature of DF, not to mention additional challenges. Plus well, it'd be a nice demostration of insanity of players trying to go futher down right through the magma and all the possible threats within. 

[Footkerchief]

True, but the suggestion that the volcanic detritus builds up to form a Z-layer that eventually fills the clear land in front of the fortress so it must be cooled, then dug through for the dwarves to access the outside has not been added.

What about volcanic ejecta?  It'll probably have to wait for parabolic trajectories, but it would probably be easier on the CPU than an actual eruption with lava flow.  Big rocks could slam down like catapult projectiles, killing whatever they land on.

[DarkCloud]

Were raging underground coal fire infernos suggested yet?

Because that certainly happens in the real world- there's apparently a fire that's been burning somewhere under PA, USA for over a decade.

[TettyNullus]

Were raging underground coal fire infernos suggested yet?

Because that certainly happens in the real world- there's apparently a fire that's been burning somewhere under PA, USA for over a decade.

IIRC that already happens when magma hits coal veins, at least I seem to remember some talk of that on the forum.

[Footkerchief]

Were raging underground coal fire infernos suggested yet?

Because that certainly happens in the real world- there's apparently a fire that's been burning somewhere under PA, USA for over a decade.

Peat fires too!

[DarkCloud]

-Hm. Thanks. That's interesting, and good to know.
-But can a dwarf accidentally start a fire in the coal in another fashion? Say, by having a forge explode near it... or having a demon run beside it and set the coal on fire?