Jostein, for some artifact from the past to be found, it takes two - it
needs to survive, and someone needs to find it. Then it's more likely to
be labeled as fertility token or religious sculpture. Assuming the next
race will give a damn about the previous ones...
Give it enough time, even our radioactive dumpster is going to disappear.
LF
AlunFoto escreveu:
Peter, your initial argument was that few humans live where
fossilisation takes place. I argue that many of our artifacts are
deposited in places that do favour fossilisation. And I would say that
shipwrecks in particular are prone to fossilisation because of the
amount of detritus that rains down on them. Many wrecks will be
covered in oxygen free mud long before they have had time to rot or
rust, and then will have reasonable probability of reaching the fossil
record. From echo sounding in eg. the Black Sea, we know that human
artefacts are already preserved that way in the form of drowned
settlements. In the Scandinavian countries, there are still untouched
bronze-age burial mounds that do contain wooden ships preserved in
peat, along with weaponry, jewelry and tools. In Denmark, nearly
perfect specimens of stone-age people have been unearthed from
marshlands which, incidentally, would also be likely candidates for
future fossilisation.
In short, I think you're overly pessimistic. The abundance of our
species across the face of this planet is so extensive that
fossilisation of enough artefacts to make a mark in history is more
likely than not.
Another matter is that future geologists will find sliver-thin strata
in the sediments that are nearly saturated with non-natural chemical
contaminants such as dioxins or moderately soluble mercury salts. And
if they're lucky they'll stumble upon some very unlikely deposits of
highly concentrated plutonium in concrete. That should be a good
puzzle for them <g>, but I think you know what I mean.
Jostein
2009/1/19 Peter Alling <[email protected]>:
In a few million years the pyramids will be weathered to less than hillocks; iron, even
stainless steel, will oxidize to dust; micro-organisms will have eaten rubber and
plastic; glass will have been smoothed to pebbles; little recognizable as an artifact
will remain. For example not too long ago, it seems that a couple of Ford Truck
sparkplugs from the 1920's were initially misidentified as "geoids". The
earth's crust is very active, and the biosphere even more so.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Sullivan <[email protected]>
Sent: Jan 19, 2009 6:55 AM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: PESO - attempt at B/W conversion
Jostein,
Our garbage dumps will be a treasure trove for future records of our existance.
Regards, Bob S.
On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 4:03 AM, AlunFoto <[email protected]> wrote:
While human bodies stand little chance of fossilising, many of our
cultural artefacts do. Structures such as pyramids, concrete, cast
iron, shipwrecks in mud, etc, etc. We started out pondering whether a
civilisation could have existed before the emergence of humans. I
would argue that any such civilisation would have been discovered by
fossilised remains of their artefacts. It is of course possible to
imagine an intelligent species not building anything to support their
existence, but that defies the definition of civilisation, doesn't it.
On an eerie sidenote, I suspect human civilisation's largest
contribution to a future fossil record will be fossilised garbage...
:-(
Jostein
2009/1/19 Luiz Felipe <[email protected]>:
Peter, I saw "Stan" (a T-Rex fossil) at Disney's Animal Kingdom and the
folks at the exibition told me how few specimens existed. It's a very
difficult puzzle indeed.
There are lots of unexplained artifacts from pre-historic ages that suggest
mankind did have a former civilization that vanished in some global
catastrophe, leaving scattered groups with tales of destruction by flood and
fire. We usually regard our achievements as important, but if mankind
disappeared the next tenants would have little to remember us.
LF
Peter Alling escreveu:
On a serious note, most people don't realize how little of the fossil
record actually exists. I think the entire T-Rex species is known from
fewer than 100 individuals with only a half a dozen considered "nearly
complete", representing several hundred thousand years of the species'
existence. The amount of time that hominids an entire group of mammalian
species have been on earth is less time than the existence of that one
species of dinosaur was. If the same amount of time elapsed between the
rise of a new intelligent creature and our demise, as between us and the
dinosaurs, I doubt enough would exist of our works to show that we were tool
users. In fact though there are an awful lot of us, I doubt there would be
many surviving fossils, as most of us live in areas not conducive to fossil
formation.
-----Original Message-----
From: AlunFoto <[email protected]>
Sent: Jan 17, 2009 3:45 PM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: PESO - attempt at B/W conversion
2009/1/17 Peter Alling <[email protected]>:
If birds are related to dinosaurs maybe they did.
Not much would be left of our civilization after a few million years.
True enough. But since there are fossilised remains of early hominids
like Lucy, then one has to wonder how a previous civilisation of
another species could have come and gone without as much as a trace in
the fossil record.
Unless, of course, the fossil record is a hoax planted by the previous
civilisation.
No, wait! That doesn't hold with the fact that Noah's flood caused all
the fossils.
<g, d & r>
Jostein
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