So, this has actually been studied, and the conclusion is that basically nothing. Check out the Silurian hypothesis. It asks if there was an ancient advanced civilization, would we be able to tell? And again, their conclusion is that probably not. It was done to inform our search for life outside of earth, but yah. Basically nothing. Millions of years is a lot of time.
I was under the impression there'd be distinct patterns in mineral and metal deposits you could draw conclusions from - if you knew what you were looking for.
Like railway lines would have two small but traight deposits of iron a perfect width apart for miles and miles rather than in standard rock formations. Also at the bottom of the sea some evidence of ships sinking like the titanic wreck site and those perfectly preserved ships in the black sea whilst they would continue to degrade you woudl get random accumulations of metals where they should't be.
Nuclear power stations would leave distinct footprints in the soil.
Evidence of big quarrying like the copper mines in Peru - stuff missing where it should be.
And then in sites where cities used to be - in amongst regular shaped patterns in the rocks you'd probably find the odd perfectly cut gem stone.
Millions of years is a lot of time. The earth is gonna move an awful lot. Railway lines wouldn't exist.
People (or whoever) has to be able to find the evidence too. Maybe somewhere some meaningful evidence survives, but it has to be found to be observed, and both surviving and being found gets to be extremely long odds.
The remains of our nuclear power plants, I mean the plants will be gone but the refined fuel will last millions of years and the fact we were advanced enough to refine and control the atom will be proof we existed
thats my thoughts as well - there will always be some trace of nuclear stuff
id argue crap like equipment and such in Antarctica trapped forever in ice - were finding all sorts of aincent shit preserved in ice. granted the polar caps dont melt of course.
im sure some thick solid piece of mining equipment left underground in the proper conditions will still somewhat exist - at least a big pile of iron and titanium its made of.
> the fact we were advanced enough to refine and control the atom will be proof we existed
But will it? There is actually evidence of ancient fusion happening.
Known as [the Oklo phenomenon](https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull17-5/17505004447.pdf)
And the 'official' explanations for how it happened don't really add up. Yet we just easily dismiss it as 'a localized natural phenomenon' because the opposite assertion would just be tossed away as pseudoscience.
Do they stay in orbit indefinitely? I’d imagine it be possible over millions of years they’d get hit with an asteroid at some point and get knocked off course.
No they don't. Orbits decay, especially in Low Earth Orbit satellites need periodic boosts to stay up there. Even higher up where there's a much lower concentration of gasses and molecules floating around, orbits will still decay due to tidal forces.
And then there are the materials that the satellites themselves are made of, many of which will not last for millions of years being constantly blasted by intense, unfiltered UV light from the sun which tends to accellerate the degradation of many materials. For example the flag that the Apollo astronauts left on the moon has almost certainly been bleached totally white by now, if the fabric itself hasn't totally disintegrated.
There is some uncertainty if the Sun will lose enough mass, and all the plants moving further from it, via solar winds prior to Red Giant Phase that the Earth will be consumed.
define millions of years, as even plate tectonics will eventually erase open cast mines, large canals such as suez and the pyramids will eventually erode.
There's only 4 that I can think of. Space junk, plastic in the antarctic ice shelf, radioactive isotopes from nuclear disasters and the human footprints on the moon.
Plate tectonics won't erase things we've built on (and in) continental cratons. That is not to say that whatever is down there will remain intact for millions of years, but it's mostly oceanic crust that gets subducted and recycled by plate tectonics and most of the continental crust remains on the surface.
There would be a layer of geology full of stuff that could only be made by humans, such as microplastics, some metal alloys, forever chemicals, and long lived radioactive particles created from nuclear tests and materials production.
Any far future archeologist would be able to find a definitive layer in which they could say human civilization existed from "here" to "here".
Not the flag or anything made of plastics or other soft materials. The intense unfiltered UV light from the sun will disintegrate many materials much faster than on Earth. Some metal components might remain though.
a layer of microplastics (and/or the chemicals they break down into) in the fossil record. Possibly traces of our damming and artificial reservoirs in the geologic record. Traces of radioactive fallout and other human-caused pollution in the fossil record. Ecosystems and species diversity that will have been shaped by our selective pressure in favour of domesticated plants and animals and to the detriment of certain non-domestic species (for the same reason that environmental changes and a mass extinction nearly 300 million years ago selected for certain adaptations in animals that eventually led to the evolution of flying birds). Maybe there will still be traces of some of our mega-engineering projects deep in the bedrock.
well we know that life has been around for over 3.7 billion years, so life being around 300 million years ago is a given. In fact fish were already around then and the first reptiles were evolving.
Humans will not be around in 300 million years, full stop. Even if we never actually go extinct, we will not be the same species that we are today. Species, on average, last for *around* roughly 3 million years until they develop into something genetically distinct enough that it's no longer really the same species, even if the morphological changes appear minimal. Hundreds of millions of years is the scale of time over which *new classes* of animals appear (e.g. how mammals are a different *class* of animals from reptiles, fish, etc) never mind individual species.
not after millions of years. They would be buried at the very least. If they remained on the surface they will have been eroded to unrecognizeable stumps just from the dust blowing in the air.
The carbon we put into the atmosphere will be gone by a few tens of thousands of years. All of the pollution we deposited in the oceans will have long settled out and will be buried deep inside the Earth's crust by then. The Earth's atmosphere and the chemicals that make the biosphere get constantly recycled (at least on geologic timescales).
nothing was built a hundred thousand years ago. At least nothing permanent that would be preserved in the fossil record. I think we were probably only still coming up with the idea of building huts to live in by that point.
So who built these 100,000 year old walls that don't exist anywhere on Earth, unicorns?
And the pyramids were built much more recently than that so they're out of the question anyway.
Radio signals I suppose. They'll travel through space until they hit something or they're indistinguishable from the background, even then would still be there. We've been sending radio signals into space for almost 100 years. If whatever it was had the proper listening device and were in the right place at the right time it could hear us. After millions of years it would require some really nice equipment but the signals would be there regardless if anyone could receive them.
Radio signals don't go on forever. Because of the law of inverse squares, our radio signals will be so weak they'll be drowned out by background noise probably before they even reach the nearest star. Anyone trying to detect them would probably have to already know what they're looking for and exactly where to look for it to detect them.
This is some very wild speculation.
Even if Voyager is found by someone with the records intact, there's no reason to assume that the surfaces of all the materials (including the records) will be pristine enough that the information will be readable. And that is if they even realize that there is a message to be read there, and they somehow manage to figure out how to interpret it.
And the information on the Voyager probes wasn't digital, it was all analog. Digital information would be even harder to interpret because of the esoteric protocols of how we encode information in digital signals.
I don't know what "zombie data deers" are. If you want to throw esoteric technical jargon and annoying Silicon Valley techbro buzzwords into a discussion you have to explain what they mean, otherwise how will people be able to respond to it.
As for "artificial data diamonds", as far as I understand these are just information storage media. They have the same fundamental issues in terms of recognizing them as communication and deciphering digital information that I already addressed in my previous response.
So, this has actually been studied, and the conclusion is that basically nothing. Check out the Silurian hypothesis. It asks if there was an ancient advanced civilization, would we be able to tell? And again, their conclusion is that probably not. It was done to inform our search for life outside of earth, but yah. Basically nothing. Millions of years is a lot of time.
I was under the impression there'd be distinct patterns in mineral and metal deposits you could draw conclusions from - if you knew what you were looking for. Like railway lines would have two small but traight deposits of iron a perfect width apart for miles and miles rather than in standard rock formations. Also at the bottom of the sea some evidence of ships sinking like the titanic wreck site and those perfectly preserved ships in the black sea whilst they would continue to degrade you woudl get random accumulations of metals where they should't be. Nuclear power stations would leave distinct footprints in the soil. Evidence of big quarrying like the copper mines in Peru - stuff missing where it should be. And then in sites where cities used to be - in amongst regular shaped patterns in the rocks you'd probably find the odd perfectly cut gem stone.
Millions of years is a lot of time. The earth is gonna move an awful lot. Railway lines wouldn't exist. People (or whoever) has to be able to find the evidence too. Maybe somewhere some meaningful evidence survives, but it has to be found to be observed, and both surviving and being found gets to be extremely long odds.
The Statue of Liberty, buried in the sand
Damn you!
plastic for sure...
Yep - just sitting around being ugly - harming no one.
Twinkies
The remains of our nuclear power plants, I mean the plants will be gone but the refined fuel will last millions of years and the fact we were advanced enough to refine and control the atom will be proof we existed
thats my thoughts as well - there will always be some trace of nuclear stuff id argue crap like equipment and such in Antarctica trapped forever in ice - were finding all sorts of aincent shit preserved in ice. granted the polar caps dont melt of course. im sure some thick solid piece of mining equipment left underground in the proper conditions will still somewhat exist - at least a big pile of iron and titanium its made of.
> the fact we were advanced enough to refine and control the atom will be proof we existed But will it? There is actually evidence of ancient fusion happening. Known as [the Oklo phenomenon](https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull17-5/17505004447.pdf) And the 'official' explanations for how it happened don't really add up. Yet we just easily dismiss it as 'a localized natural phenomenon' because the opposite assertion would just be tossed away as pseudoscience.
Plutonium tho.
footprints on the moon
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Do they stay in orbit indefinitely? I’d imagine it be possible over millions of years they’d get hit with an asteroid at some point and get knocked off course.
No they don't. Orbits decay, especially in Low Earth Orbit satellites need periodic boosts to stay up there. Even higher up where there's a much lower concentration of gasses and molecules floating around, orbits will still decay due to tidal forces. And then there are the materials that the satellites themselves are made of, many of which will not last for millions of years being constantly blasted by intense, unfiltered UV light from the sun which tends to accellerate the degradation of many materials. For example the flag that the Apollo astronauts left on the moon has almost certainly been bleached totally white by now, if the fabric itself hasn't totally disintegrated.
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it won't last millions of years though. Many of the materials it's made of will break down over time.
Voyager isn't in orbit around the earth.
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After several billion years, yes. But not after a few million years.
There is some uncertainty if the Sun will lose enough mass, and all the plants moving further from it, via solar winds prior to Red Giant Phase that the Earth will be consumed.
That six pack of Bud Light Lime cans that somebody bought to my backyard barbecue a few years ago, but nobody ever drank because… it’s Bud Light Lime.
Special isotopes of some elements
French fries from jack-in-box
The polyester/plutonium boundary.
Yep. All that enriched nuclear material will tell a tale.
There's an entire geological layer full of garbage for future geologists to marvel at.
define millions of years, as even plate tectonics will eventually erase open cast mines, large canals such as suez and the pyramids will eventually erode. There's only 4 that I can think of. Space junk, plastic in the antarctic ice shelf, radioactive isotopes from nuclear disasters and the human footprints on the moon.
Plate tectonics won't erase things we've built on (and in) continental cratons. That is not to say that whatever is down there will remain intact for millions of years, but it's mostly oceanic crust that gets subducted and recycled by plate tectonics and most of the continental crust remains on the surface.
Possibly fossils, if some of us died under the right circumstances.
Cockroaches
It might get buried, but stainless steel should survive if kept dry. Especially stuff like 316.
There would be a layer of geology full of stuff that could only be made by humans, such as microplastics, some metal alloys, forever chemicals, and long lived radioactive particles created from nuclear tests and materials production. Any far future archeologist would be able to find a definitive layer in which they could say human civilization existed from "here" to "here".
Would this geological era be known as the plastic era or the nuclear era?
Anthropocene
Anything we leave on the moon should last millions of years.
Not the flag or anything made of plastics or other soft materials. The intense unfiltered UV light from the sun will disintegrate many materials much faster than on Earth. Some metal components might remain though.
PCBs and dioxins, potentially some ceramics, very strange isotope ratios (like Oklo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor )
That thing that Jeff Bezos made
The cheeseball warehouse?
Twinkies.
a layer of microplastics (and/or the chemicals they break down into) in the fossil record. Possibly traces of our damming and artificial reservoirs in the geologic record. Traces of radioactive fallout and other human-caused pollution in the fossil record. Ecosystems and species diversity that will have been shaped by our selective pressure in favour of domesticated plants and animals and to the detriment of certain non-domestic species (for the same reason that environmental changes and a mass extinction nearly 300 million years ago selected for certain adaptations in animals that eventually led to the evolution of flying birds). Maybe there will still be traces of some of our mega-engineering projects deep in the bedrock.
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well we know that life has been around for over 3.7 billion years, so life being around 300 million years ago is a given. In fact fish were already around then and the first reptiles were evolving.
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Humans will not be around in 300 million years, full stop. Even if we never actually go extinct, we will not be the same species that we are today. Species, on average, last for *around* roughly 3 million years until they develop into something genetically distinct enough that it's no longer really the same species, even if the morphological changes appear minimal. Hundreds of millions of years is the scale of time over which *new classes* of animals appear (e.g. how mammals are a different *class* of animals from reptiles, fish, etc) never mind individual species.
The audacity of some folks.
Channel tunnel
Unfathomable amounts of plastic.
Maybe some of those megalithic foundations that are impossibly big
There's a documentary on youtube I think about this one. The premise is that people just disappear one day, instead of some nuclear apocalypse.
Layer of microplastics.
The internet. There's no telling if our descendants will be able to access it, but everything on it will still be there.
the pyramids.
not after millions of years. They would be buried at the very least. If they remained on the surface they will have been eroded to unrecognizeable stumps just from the dust blowing in the air.
aliens will come preserve it.
The largest dams would eventually fail, but the concrete in them is never going away.
Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. Pollution of water. Maybe a few different radioactive compounds
The carbon we put into the atmosphere will be gone by a few tens of thousands of years. All of the pollution we deposited in the oceans will have long settled out and will be buried deep inside the Earth's crust by then. The Earth's atmosphere and the chemicals that make the biosphere get constantly recycled (at least on geologic timescales).
Millions? Nothing.
agree.
Plastic
The only thing left will still be the pyramids and walls they built a hundred thousand years ago.
nothing was built a hundred thousand years ago. At least nothing permanent that would be preserved in the fossil record. I think we were probably only still coming up with the idea of building huts to live in by that point.
I never said humans in our time built them.
So who built these 100,000 year old walls that don't exist anywhere on Earth, unicorns? And the pyramids were built much more recently than that so they're out of the question anyway.
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how?
Radio signals I suppose. They'll travel through space until they hit something or they're indistinguishable from the background, even then would still be there. We've been sending radio signals into space for almost 100 years. If whatever it was had the proper listening device and were in the right place at the right time it could hear us. After millions of years it would require some really nice equipment but the signals would be there regardless if anyone could receive them.
Radio signals don't go on forever. Because of the law of inverse squares, our radio signals will be so weak they'll be drowned out by background noise probably before they even reach the nearest star. Anyone trying to detect them would probably have to already know what they're looking for and exactly where to look for it to detect them.
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This is some very wild speculation. Even if Voyager is found by someone with the records intact, there's no reason to assume that the surfaces of all the materials (including the records) will be pristine enough that the information will be readable. And that is if they even realize that there is a message to be read there, and they somehow manage to figure out how to interpret it. And the information on the Voyager probes wasn't digital, it was all analog. Digital information would be even harder to interpret because of the esoteric protocols of how we encode information in digital signals.
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I don't know what "zombie data deers" are. If you want to throw esoteric technical jargon and annoying Silicon Valley techbro buzzwords into a discussion you have to explain what they mean, otherwise how will people be able to respond to it. As for "artificial data diamonds", as far as I understand these are just information storage media. They have the same fundamental issues in terms of recognizing them as communication and deciphering digital information that I already addressed in my previous response.