A Hundred Millennia From Now

[ecosophia]

I need a little help from my readers for a fiction project in the early conceptual changes.

I'm trying to find accurate information about the enduring legacies of modern industrial civilization. Assume that our civilization circles through the normal cycle of decline and fall. Assume that ordinary history continues for the next hundred thousand years or so. Assume that ordinary ecological and climatic cycles, perturbed by our current mess, return to normal in a reasonable period of time and persist for that same very long period. What traces will remain of the earth's first global technic civilization?

What I would like, if any of my readers can point me to this, are some easily accessible written sources by geologists and other people literate in the earth sciences which address this. Yes, I'm beginning to draft a story set in the far future; no, it's not going to be the fake future of so much bad science fiction, in which today's mental and cultural habits remain frozen in place across the ages while technotrinkets lurch into ever more elaborately predictable forms. We never went to the stars, nor did alien space bats ever come to visit us; life has continued to evolve; today's industrial society, the legendary First Technate, is a dim presence long since fallen out of mythology, and recalled only in fragmentary surviving records from less prodigiously ancient societies.

Oh, and there's a new ice age on, though the glaciers are slowly beginning to retreat. Fun times!

If any of you have scientifically based sources to suggest for the long-term destinies of our mines and freeways, dams and tunnels, landfills and miscellaneous waste, I'm all ears.

Comments

[hippieviking]

JMG,

One thing that comes to mind every once in a while for me is the interstate system. The roads themselves, the bridges etc will, of course, be gone but the grades are likely to be there in many areas until something like a glaciation removes them. Recently I was walking around a friend's property with him and as we strolled down a little path I pointed out what was obviously at one time a skid road for logging. "OH! That's what that is!" says my friend. It stood out like a sore thumb to me even though it was long overgrown. I can easily imagine someone likewise standing on a ridge somewhere looking down on the ancient grade of an interstate and thinking, "that sure looks like a road, but for what? For what would one need such a huge road, especially out here?"

Another thing that comes to mind is some of the dams. Grand Coulee, for example, will have failed long before a hundred thousand years has passed but, I'd expect the remains of that structure to potentially be around for a ridiculously long time.

There is also the good old piles of nuclear waste, but I imagine you were already thinking of that.

I'll be curious to see what it is you're working on.

HV

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this.

[(Anonymous)]

For concrete - most modern concrete does not have the self-healing formula of 2,000 year old Roman concrete, so 100 year lifespan or less without maintenance. Unpainted iron and steel are also toast surprisingly quick without regular maintenance.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Expected-lifespan-and-causes-of-failure-of-steel-products-shows-that-the-average_fig10_281127566
https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-reinforced-concrete-56078

Faster infrastructure destruction if a big geologic event happens such as:
- For frequency of dinosaur mass extinction asteroid hits:
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/how-often-do-chicxulub-level-asteroids-hit-earth/.

- The magnetic North Pole right now is wandering faster than in previous decades in the last 30 or so years. We are due for a magnetic pole flip. Plays havoc with the protective Van Allen Belts keeping radiation off the planet's current major population centers. Easy way to fry unshielded electronics.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/earth-magnetic-field-flip-north-south-poles-science

- Solar flare mega pulses which can wipe out most life forms not underground or unprotected but for tardigrades and, one assumes, cockroaches.
https://www.livescience.com/miyake-events-mystery-deepens

What happens if all three of those occur in the same time frame? Not good. Then consider this horror show:

A "normal" planet Earth volcanic extinction level event such as the massive basalt flows now cut through by the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington State right near the Hanford nuke Superfund sites, ditto the Siberian and Deccan traps:
https://news.mit.edu/2015/siberian-traps-end-permian-extinction-0916

To have glaciers retreating and a new Ice Age starting, I'd think there'd have to be at least one of those massive geologic and.or solar system events to skew the normal global weather patterns. Or maybe a massive asteroid hitting the Moon and playing havoc on Earth's winds and tides, or perhaps one changing the spin of the Earth. Maybe something with the SAA?
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-researchers-track-slowly-splitting-dent-in-earth-s-magnetic-field

W.R.

[(Anonymous)]

I think glass bottles should be around the most and granite stuff. Those thick champagne bottles should be around for a lot of time granted they stay in one piece


https://theswaddle.com/a-book-that-imagines-life-after-people/

I don't think plastic will stay around much, nature has a way to kill it already, ultraviolet rays

[athaia]

Alan Weisman's The World Without Us goes into this, although he assumes that humans are gone altogether in his scenario.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. I can riff off that, by factoring in human actions from the other thirteen global technological societies that have existed after ours!

[team10tim]

Large granite carvings, like Mount Rushmore, erode very slowly, assuming that they aren't covered under a mile of ice. Similarly, mines, quarries, and military bunkers might have filled in, but it will be with a different material. The Pyramids might be covered with foliage, but the mounds will still be there.

Glass and ceramics will be chemically stable, but they will erode if exposed, buried they would be fine. We believe that some plastics will last that long, again buried because they photodegrade. Aluminum too, if it is protected from abrasion.

So, regardless of the weather, large cities south of the glaciers will have bits of broken glass and ceramics in the soil, beer bottles, coffee cups, floor tiles, window glass, etc. There will probably be some aluminum cans, aluminum siding, and aluminum car and airplane parts. Landfills will likely have some hard plastics left.

Some precious metals like gold and platinum will be fine. Man made diamonds too, but I doubt anyone will go to the trouble of separating natural diamonds from artificial ones.

Also, there are some special places in the world that preserve some materials. Peat bogs and the bottom of the Black Sea preserves organic matter but not metals. Several cave systems have odd and geologically stable chemistry that will destroy somethings and preserve others.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. Any chance you know of some sources?

[booklover1973]

There is a book "The World Without Us", which deals with the question how long the human artefacts of the present survive into the future.

[ecosophia]

Okay, that's two recommendations for that book. I'll see if the library system has it. Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

It would be like the legend of Atlantis, if I had to guess. You would know something happened long ago but the details would be almost completely gone. And you might not even know about the legends at all unless you went to some odd corner of the world. How often do people talk about Atlantis today?

Did you know there are what look like roads buried in the sea? Nobody knows who made them. Other strange constructions buried under the sea defy explanation - grooved paths that seem to go nowhere, etc.

[ecosophia]

I do indeed know there are roads buried in the sea, and a lot of other signs of relatively advanced civilization during the last ice age. The sudden burst of rising temperatures and sea level rise that gave birth to the Atlantis legend happened around 9600 BC; now imagine something ten times as far in the past...

[ill_made_knight]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People#:~:text=Life%20After%20People%20is%20a,Earth%20if%20humanity%20suddenly%20disappeared.
the above might give you an idea what will happen to infrastructure. plus maybe resources for further research.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this.

[aldabra]

I think you want the bibliography from chapter 16 of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0753513579/ref=asc_df_0753513579/

(The Look Inside feature doesn't include the biblio, or indeed the chapter, but will let you assess whether it's worth getting it from somewhere.)

[ecosophia]

Three recommendations! Thank you for this.

[(Anonymous)]

I could see a Toyota Hilux getting locked in a shipping container and buried in the desert sands for 100k years, then someone discovers it and figures out how to make it start with ethanol but doesn't put any oil in the crank case and blows the engine.

[ecosophia]

Um, no. My understanding is that long before it got excavated, all the plastics -- everything from wire insulation to engine gaskets to fan belts to tires -- would have depolymerized and disintegrated.

Interesting times!

[(Anonymous)]

"We never went to the stars, nor did alien space bats ever come to visit us; life has continued to evolve; today's industrial society, the legendary First Technate, is a dim presence long since fallen out of mythology, and recalled only in fragmentary surviving records from less prodigiously ancient societies.

Oh, and there's a new ice age on, though the glaciers are slowly beginning to retreat. Fun times!"

I have no idea of how to answer your question, because I'm not an expert , but thanks for asking it, you are as always very provocative and non-conformist...

Re: Interesting times!

[ecosophia]

Thank you. So much science fiction these days is so boring because it's all set in the same starship-festooned future, which has been done not merely to death but to absolute cosmic annihilation. I'm interested in futures nobody's run into the ground yet.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
Not a very serious example, but Dmitry Orlov once suggested that the most enduring artifact of our civilization is going to be a ceramic toilet :))
Kirsten

[ecosophia]

He may well be right. Heavy ceramic objects can last a very long time!

Plastic and half-lives

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, I love your work. This sounds like a very cool premise.
Just off the top of my head, the enduring legacy of non-biodegradable materials, namely plastic and radioactive stuff. Conjures images of far-ancient landfills, lost nuclear missile silos, hulks of melted down reactors, Yucca Mountain, etc.

Re: Plastic and half-lives

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this. Radioactive stuff is certainly an issue, but plastic breaks down over time; a hundred thousand years is, if I understand correctly, more than enough time for plastic even in relatively sheltered locations to disintegrate into microplastic fragments -- and that's to say nothing of what will happen as evolution leads bacteria to specialize for feeding on the very convenient high-carbon, high-hydrogen food source of plastic!

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read any of these, but I did see the documentary "Life After People"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People

...and the Wikipedia entry suggested entries on these written sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Man

In my experience, a good way to track down more books is to go to Amazon, look up a relevant title, then see what related books the Amazon algorithm suggests. You don't have to actually buy any books from Amazon or have an account; you can just use their automatic "you might also like" function to get suggestions, click on them, read the blurbs and reviews, decide what looks interesting, write the titles and authors down, and go ask the library to find the books for you or buy them from an independent source.

Happy hunting!

[ecosophia]

Thank you for these links! I avoid the Big Slimy River on principle; I'll see if some of the other online venues have a similar service.

[(Anonymous)]

Here's my guess for mathematics -

1) Partial Differential Equations - both as regards models, as well as the qualitative theory of the same.
2) Topology - as a discipline that serves as a companion to 1).
3) Dynamical Systems Theory - as a prerequisite to 1)

I expect the future Slavic civilization to make some very interesting contributions to all 3, especially the first two. IIRC, Spengler spoke about the Russian mental image being one of a traditional church in the middle of a flat plain extending endlessly in all directions - PDEs are infinite-dimensional systems, and thus it would make sense that the Slavic civilization does well in it. Same goes for topology.

That said, I think there's a chance that the Hindu and Han civilizations will do well in these areas, too - both have proven to be quite good at adaptation and assimilation of foreign cultural contributions. (Does this have something to do with the cyclical nature of the way both civilizations perceive time?)

I also expect future work in solution techniques to be much, much more heavily slanted towards perturbation methods than it is today - current numerical methods cannot be used in a society without access to cheap fossil fuel.

Finally, regarding modelling - I may be overly optimistic here; but I think the art of modelling with PDEs and ODEs (Ordinary Differential Equations) is likely to survive, with the only condition that it will likely be far more tilted towards utilitarian purposes than it is towards fields like general relativity, quantum physics or evolutionary biology (which is the case today). I also expect future societies to build DE models for a dizzying array of phenomena, but with the mentality that guides the American mathematician Ralph Abraham: "Models are no good for predictions, but they're good for understanding".

As for these fields being passed on to coming generations, I think the best way to do so would be via oral methods - the Vedas have been passed down exactly the same way, as have the Saiva Agamas, the early forms of which predate the Vedas.

[ecosophia]

Now project that 100,000 years in the future, when the Slavic, Hindu, and Han civilizations are as completely forgotten as the various cultures of Homo erectus are forgotten today. That's what I'm talking about, you know. Any thoughts on what mathematics will be viable on computers that use hydraulic technology, which use continuous flows rather than discrete numbers? Those were standard in the Fifth Technate, about 40,000 years in our future...

Book

[(Anonymous)]

Seems like Jan Zalasiewicz's
The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?
Is what you are looking for. A book written by a field geologist on how long the products of present day civilisation might last. I haven't read the book but from some reviews -- generally nothing will be left of cities except higher concentrations of calcium, silicates and metals. The most lasting impact of today's technic civilisation would probably be a layer of plastic waste in the oceans.

Re: Book

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this. That's exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.

Silurian Hypothesis

[(Anonymous)]

If you haven't yet, try googling "Silurian hypothesis". That is a thought experiment (not really a hypothesis as such) that says, suppose a high-tech civilization existed on this planet during the Silurian Period, i.e. ~400 million years ago. Would we know? What signs would there be and how obvious would they be? (This is generally thought to be about when air-breathing terrestrial animals were first appearing, so presumably any such actual civilization on Earth would've had to've been alien colonists, I suppose.) There have been a lot of essays and even some peer-reviewed papers on the subject. Often such writings are a jumping-off point for considering what will be left of our own high-tech civilization 400 million years from now.

My recollection is that our longest-remaining traces will be geological evidence of a mass extinction event as well as an unusually rapid increase in atmospheric carbon over a very short timeframe (and no evidence of concurrent volcanic activity or any other natural explanation). The evidence of such things will be part of the geological record long after all our concrete and plastics and dead bodies have dissolved to nothing. Also, square/rectangular traces of building foundations will be obvious for a very long time-- and clearly artificial, since right angles are not super common in nature (though one can still imagine far-future skeptics arguing for some natural cause nonetheless)-- long after there's little or nothing else left of the buildings themselves.

The Silurian hypothesis was inspired by a Doctor Who episode which portrayed a civilization of lizard people living on Earth during the Silurian Period, who (coincidentally? I guess?) called themselves the Silurians.

-troy jones iii

Re: Silurian Hypothesis

[ecosophia]

Hmm! Thanks for this. That's much longer than the time frame I have in mind, but it will doubtless give me some ideas.

Let us build our Mount Voormithadreth

[vitranc]

Well while I would agree that our technology leaves most things reliably fragile to the wear and tear of time. I think mostly the great earth mover projects will survive. Maybe a great crater left after a mine was abandoned. Or maybe the site of Grande Dixence Dam even though the concrete will long since have collapsed, the river takes away most of the ruble, but there is still a pile of obviously not natural rubble on eather side of the river, greeting travelers like two Argonath-walls-piles.
Or maybe the Alexander Pillar will still adorn the middle of some pasture.

what interests me are the sites we do know were preserved to this day.
Göbekli Tepe
Gunung Padang
Those are monumental sites, whose ruins remained.

Now some years ago I was playing turist in Hallstadt. The site of the oldest salt mine in the world. And curiously The guide claimed, that those wacky nazis stored art in the tunnels during ww2. Why? Because the climate inside is just perfect for preservation. Link
And since the site has been stabily populateed for thousands of years there have been excavations yealding interesting results as to wood preservation.
Another one, although I admit I did not read this last one.
And the Alps were covered with glaciers in the last Ice age...

Now given some BIG "if"s;
Lets say there are structuraly sound mines, built or better still bored into solid ground, so that the inner chambers remain structuraly sound for tens of tausands of years.
Lets say the mine is situated in the land in a way, that it has adequate natural drainage, so it does not get flooded.
Lets say it gets covered with glaciers and one of the tunnels gets exposed with receding Ice.
Lets say that before the First Technate fell someone put artefacts inside.

...
Iâ, Iâ Tsathoggua!

Re: Let us build our Mount Voormithadreth

[ecosophia]

Vitranc, thanks for these.

[(Anonymous)]

If sufficient steel and lead artefacts from modern civilization are still around, a future civilization's scientists might notice a discontinuity in the background level of radiation amongst the artefacts, hinting at some of our antics...

Not linked to directly to sources, but fascinating:

Low Background Steel. - Twitter thread (https://twitter.com/CyberPunkCortes/status/1662105701982896128?s=20)

[ecosophia]

And thanks for this!

The World Without Us was the instant first thought

[chaosadventurer]

As a book, it was a great and informative read. It appeared to be well researched with references.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us
that will lead you in many useful paths.
And as you can see, many of us feel that way. Would very much be my starting point.

The History Channel's Life After People
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People
is worthwhile viewing if you can manage it, and certainly that page has useful references. Snippets can be seen on YouTube (there went the last hour revisiting) I see there are DVDs around that might be worth viewing at the library. (knowing you likely aren't really geared for it at home)
I could see viewing parties of this in preparation for the book or for release parties ;)

Re: The World Without Us was the instant first thought

[ecosophia]

That's four recommendations of the book, so it's definitely way up there on the get-to list. Thanks for both of these.

[(Anonymous)]

It will of course depend on staying dry rather than some event flooding it but there is an opportunity for a salt mine to become a treasure trove of information from being used for document storage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35322992

-P

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Thanks for this.

[(Anonymous)]

Transportation tunnels through the Alps might last a hundred thousand years...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_in_the_Alps

[ecosophia]

A good point. Thanks for this.

Embassies

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
Some American diplomats told me their embassy buildings will be America's last monuments as they had to start building them to resist explosions after the debacle of the American embassy building in Lebanon being blown up. I know this is not what you asked for but there may still be traces of these embassies in the time frame of your story.

Re: Embassies

[ecosophia]

Hmm! Thank you; I'll look into it.

[(Anonymous)]

I read Hank Wesselman's Spiritwalker a number of years ago. He has visions of the future - and amongst his adventures he stumbles across an old road in the jungle, now overgrown and cracked. A good book.

The best book of all, of course, is Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban. How far into the future is not clear, but the bands of rough humans are picking over the long crumbled wreckage of modern civilisation in places still resembling their original names: Cambry (Canterbury), Horny Boy (Herne Bay), Do-it-over (Dover), etc. - using a language that still retains some of today's grammar, syntax and structure.

It is a phenomenal work of literature, and the innovative language was praised by Anthony Burgess (of Clockwork Orange fame).

Beyond anything else, Riddley Walker coheres with my vision of the post-civilisation future. Wild packs of dogs and wild humans.

Hank Wesselman's Spiritwalker

[chaosadventurer]

Yes, I was trying to remember that trilogy. Very much along in a similar spirit to what JMG even if very different story and way of approaching it. I remember that old road as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Wesselman
An interesting individual, worth reading about him even if just that article.

[(Anonymous)]

Nuclear waste - disposal sites like underground caverns that had been filled with nuclear waste and remain accessible in some way or that have some kind of steady interaction with the environment via groundwater, etc. Strontium, Cesium and other comparably short lived isotopes will be gone, but others not. Prominent among those and relevant for the time-frame you are discussing are for example Technetium isotopes which are produces with high yields by the fission of Uranium and decay with half-lives around 1E6 years. There is ongoing research if they are capable of being integrated into humic complexes which would provide one possible way of proliferation via aquifers.

I generally speculate that the many areas of increased radiation our society has created will turn out to be significant drivers of evolution once we loose control of them and proliferation happens at increased rates.

It's been a while that I last had contact to active research in that field but if that's a line of possible interest and you need any scientific literature I could see if I can still dig up something.

Cheers,
Nachtgurke

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. That I know of, nuclear waste won't come into it, but if it does I'll certainly let you know.

[brendhelm]

I've been watching some of the Life After People videos (though you don't do video). Granite is slow to erode, so structures made out of it such as Mount Rushmore will likely still be recognizable in 102,023 AD, though the details of the interim glaciation(s) might affect this (how many glacial maxima will there be between now and then in this scenario?). During the Last Glacial Maximum, I think (if I'm reading Wikipedia's map right), the area was a polar desert, cold and dry but shy of the ice sheets.

Could some swimming pools survive? I'm thinking especially here of pools in things like high-rise hotels where the pool will be buried under the debris of the building as it collapses. The walls of some are ceramic, and buried ceramics have been mentioned as things that could last a while. Of course, in a situation where people don't just disappear (as they do in Life After People), controlled demolition, salvage, or the intentional draining of the swimming pool for drinking water or other water uses could affect this.

[ecosophia]

There's one glacial maximum between now and the time of my story, about 80,000 years from now. I'm pretty sure Mount Rushmore is well known, even though it's very far north in tundra country. Yes, there may be some remnant swimming pool basins, though a hundred millennia of salvage and rebuilding may not have left much!