When our species has become extinct, is there anything that would survive long enough to tell the next intelligent species to arise that we were a technological civilization? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by Crackhappy@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] cali_ash@lemmy.wtf 1 points 7 months ago

Look at fossils as example. Yes, we have quite a lot of them but they stretch over a couple hundred million years, so imagen the things we don’t know about these periods

I get your point. But then again look at how many fossiles there still are. And those are all biologically, easily degraded. We've build quite sturdy things and even if only a tiny fraction survives there should be plenty for future archeologist to figure out that there was some civilisation at work.

With the extend that humans have changed the planet, we should leave a very obvious geological marker. Like suddenly there is plastic in the sediment layers ...

[-] scorpionix@feddit.de 1 points 7 months ago

But then again look at how many fossiles there still are. And those are all biologically, easily degraded.

You got that one the wrong way around. These fossiles are still here because of the special environmental circumstances in which they formed. Most biological matter decomposes without a trace.

Like suddenly there is plastic in the sediment layers …

If we were to go extinct today, these layers would be incredible thin. 12 k years of human history is a blink of an eye in terms of geological timeframes and for most of that we didn't produce long lasting materials.

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024

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