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

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[-] Etterra@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

There will be strangely distributed concentrations of various materials in any sediment layer from our period, such as iron, copper, aluminum, hydrocarbons, and various minerals. A lot of these will be in relatively small areas and also laid out in clearly artificial geometric patterns, especially in straight lines.

[-] fenwickrysen@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

That layer will also include, worldwide, levels of radioisotopes that do not occur naturally. The same way that there is an Iridium layer on the soils of 65MYA showing the asteroids that killed the dinosaurs, the current sediments being laid down have traces of plutonium and other materials that will exist until the sun becomes a red giant and swallow the Earth.

[-] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 2 points 8 months ago

Not to mention, the carbon dating of everything currently on the surface will have a stark difference from the carbon dating of everything currently below the surface, because nuclear power and weapons permanently offset it. They'll be like "what a strange unexplained phenomenon..." and then after they figure out how to do it themselves they'll think "OH. That's how that happened. Huh."

this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024

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