The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave In The Rocks?

ScienceDaily ^ | October 5, 2008 | University of Leicester

[SunkenCiv]

[The author] takes the perspective of alien explorers arriving on earth - their geologists study the layers of rock, using the many clues to piece together its history over several billion years...

Dr Zalasiewicz said: "From the perspective of 100 million years in the future – a geologist's view – the reign of humans on Earth would seem very short: we would almost certainly have died out long before then. What footprint will we leave in the rocks? What would have become of our great cities, our roads and tunnels, our cars, our plastic cups in the far distant future? What fossils would we leave behind? ...

"Looking to the distant future gives us a warning for the present: our activities have already left a significant footprint on the planet, and not a flattering one. It is not too late to limit it. We would not wish to be dubbed by future explorers the 'amazingly clever and utterly foolish two-legged ape'."

Zalasiewicz's book "The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave In The Rocks?" is published by Oxford University Press.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Giant toy rabbit spotted from space
Austrian Times | October 15, 2008
Posted on 10/20/2008 5:35:35 AM PDT by Schnucki
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2110072/posts

[SunkenCiv]

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The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks? by Jan Zalasiewicz

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[Monkey Face]

*sheesh*

If, as is prophesied, the earth will be destroyed by fire, the plastics, metals, road, buildings and so fort will be ashes.

Why worry? It won’t happen in our lifetime!

[Just another Joe]

I once thought about writing a short story on a subject similar to this.
It started out seeming as if it were our race discovering another inhabited planet, commenting on different phenomena they were observing.

It ended with, "The inhabitants call it, "Earth".

[tx_eggman]

Plastic bags, styrofoam and a layer of really nasty disposable diapers

[Tanniker Smith]

Some advice from an editor from years ago: “Never do that.”

[Admin Moderator]

Bricks.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Unless man intervenes with science and technology, there's a high probability the planet won't be around that long. Right now we're in an arm of our galaxy that isn't that crowded with stars and other cosmic stuff. Due to our solar system's rotation and other systems doing the same in about fifty thousand years we will be in a heavy traffic area.

So if man does nothing, the author's theories are crap.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

AOL cds.

[Constitution Day]

And pottery.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I remember someone famous saying that someday, we’d be digging up landfills for the valuable metals and other resources they contain.

[null and void]

We have a winna!

[null and void]

*blush* Someone remembered!

[Just another Joe]

Some advice from an editor from years ago: “Never do that.”

Yeh, well, I never did it so I guess I knew that already.
But it really was sort of humorous.

Things like the observation that the ruling race must have been the metal denizens because they took their slaves to their work every day and then they just sat there enjoying the view, the fact that the prevailing mode of communication was radio waves because that's all the observers ever observed, etc.

[ClearCase_guy]

Cher will be working on yet another comeback.

[Liberty1970]

Unless man intervenes with science and technology, there's a high probability the planet won't be around that long. Right now we're in an arm of our galaxy that isn't that crowded with stars and other cosmic stuff. Due to our solar system's rotation and other systems doing the same in about fifty thousand years we will be in a heavy traffic area.

Can you provide a reference? What are the implications for life in general in a denser region?

I've read that life could not exist in the core of our galaxy, but am not familiar with similar arguments (assuming they are similar) for intermediate regions of density outside the core. And extrapolating backward, how long would it be in conventional timescales since we last emerged from such a region? 50kya is a drop in the buck of deep time.

[null and void]

*shrug* we’ve been through it before. End of the Permian, end of the Cambrian, end of the Cretaceous.

No biggie...

[G-Bear]

An alien studying the remains of our culture would conclude that dogs and cats ruled the planet, and raised a group of primates as their slaves.