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Can We Be Sure We're the First Industrial Civilization on Earth?
In a new paper, Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adam Frank from the University of Rochester ask a provocative question [open, DOI: 10.1017/S1473550418000095] [DX]: Could there have been an industrial civilization on Earth millions of years ago? And if so, what evidence of it would we be able to find today?
The authors first considered what signs of industrial civilization would be expected to survive in the geological record. In our own time, these include plastics, synthetic pollutants, increased metal concentrations, and evidence of large-scale energy use, such as carbon-based fossil fuels. Taken together, they mark what some scientists call the Anthropocene era, in which humans are having a significant and measurable impact on our planet.
The authors conclude, however, that it would be very difficult after tens of millions of years to distinguish these industrial byproducts from the natural background. Even plastic, which was previously thought to be quite resistant, can be degraded by enzymes relatively quickly. Only radiation from nuclear power plants—or from a nuclear war—would be discernible in the geological rock record after such a long time.
Anonymous Coward says "I told you so!" and starts babbling about megaliths.
Related: Homo Sapiens Began Advanced Toolmaking, Pigment Use, and Trade Earlier Than Previously Thought
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DutchUncle on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:29PM
This has been discussed in SF before: "Forever" (in human terms) is a very long time. We believe that we have evidence that the dinosaurs died out within pretty short time because of an extinction event, so it is reasonable to think there could have been other extinction events. We believe that we have evidence of continental drift and dramatically changing land masses, so it is reasonable to accept that we have very limited knowledge of the 3/4 of Earth that is currently underwater (we find Roman Empire - era things in the busy Mediterranean every now and then, having misplaced them for 2000 years; how much more might there be in deeper waters?) and similarly limited knowledge of sections of Earth that are currently very hard rock (Alps, Himalayas, Rockies, Andes, etc.). Our civilizations have clustered around coastlines; a little bit of sinking, or a little bit of continental plate collision, and the entire coastline becomes unavailable for research.