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posted by mrpg on Thursday April 19 2018, @07:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the Wakanda dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday April 20 2018, @12:32AM (1 child)

    You not only have to hide fossils of the creatures of the civilization, but also any closely related species.

    Perhaps some of these might be descendants of such an intelligent species?
    https://www.thoughtco.com/smartest-dinosaurs-1091961 [thoughtco.com]

    Or not. Likely not, in fact.

    But proving that it's not is nearly impossible. And every piece of evidence we *don't* find doesn't make such a hypothesis less plausible. Contrariwise, just *one* piece of verified evidence of a pre-human civilization is all that's required to validate it.

    As such, it's foolish to reject such a hypothesis out of hand.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 20 2018, @01:53AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 20 2018, @01:53AM (#669447) Journal

    But proving that it's not is nearly impossible.

    What is "proof" here? You can't prove mathematically, that the entire universe isn't a delusion imposed on you by an evil god.

    Contrariwise, just *one* piece of verified evidence of a pre-human civilization is all that's required to validate it.

    We're at zero pieces of verified evidence.