Human civilisation in 1.5 billion years

[PIT2]

I once read a story on the internet, written by a supposed alien abductee, who said that intelligent insectoids will walk on Earth in 1.5 billion years and find no evidence that humans ever existed.

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

 

[matthyaouw]

In 1.5 billion years, I'd say not much. Long into the future I'd imagine there would be remains of cities in the sedimentary record. If humans went extinct right now, low-lying cities would not only gradually crumble, but flood and become buried under floodplains. So long as these are not subsequently eroded away, they will lithify and become a part of the sedimentary sequence until they are destroyed by erosion, or metamorphosed beyond all recognition. After 1.5 billion years it is likely that most of the rock has been lost though.
I guess an additional advantage would be given to anything we have already buried, like nuclear waste.

I wonder how well the stuff we leave in space would survive... Anyone know how likely it is a satellite will maintain its orbit, and how likely it is that the moon landers get hit by a meteor?

 

[PIT2]

There was a show on NGC in which they said a satellite can stay in proper orbit for 10 years to 15 years depending on how much fuel it has. I guess they come down after that and burn during reentry.

Maybe its a good idea to build something that can withstand the forces of nature for a few billion years... if that's possible.

 

[Andre]

Like Matthyaouw said already, we should scrutinize the moon surface for Dinosaur landers or something and those insects of 1,5 Byear in the future should look for our Apollo remains on the moon as well as some vehicles on Mars.

 

[scott1]

Intellgent insectoids?He's wrong it's not going Intellgent insectoids It's going to be intellgnet squids I saw it on animal planet where there talking what life whould be like millons of years from now

 

[matthyaouw]

Intellgent insectoids?He's wrong it's not going Intellgent insectoids It's going to be intellgnet squids I saw it on animal planet where there talking what life whould be like millons of years from now

But this is 1.5 billion years ahead. The squid will have been and gone already.

 

[nazgjunk]

Intellgent insectoids?He's wrong it's not going Intellgent insectoids It's going to be intellgnet squids I saw it on animal planet where there talking what life whould be like millons of years from now

*sigh*
Not even animal planet is able to make accurate guesses on how life will be in two million years. The giant squid tale isn't true, it's merely a suggestion.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Look at the obvious: mamalian life forms seem to have the ability to adapt exponentialy, is it fish, mamals, cephalopods, Insects, or plants, who will dominate?
In our environment it's mammals. The inverse square law prohibits insects becoming large enough to become sentient, so only on low gravity worlds would they. And if low gravity there are much more viable alternatives. kinda funny the crap people will come out with. I'd imagine in certain conditions insects will rule a planet but mammalian type life forms will often dominate, for squid to become dominant would take a really weird set of circumstances. Which is why I believe first contact will be between something different but fundamentally similar to us. And to be honest I don't believe Greg from wisconsin was the first person to make contact with an alien race

 

[DaveC426913]

In 1.5 billion years, anything on the surface of the Earth, even the most durable, will be subducted via tectonic activity back into the molten interior.

Ironically, one of the only places evidence of our existence may remain is on the geologically dead Moon or Mars.

 

[waht]

I think a lot of things will survive in 1.5 billions years. Unlike in any other time in history, people have manufactured billions or even trillions of products, ranging from tv, cars, trucks, tanks, airplanes, etc.

Its just a number game, some of it has to survive because there is more human traces then there is time to destroy them.

There is a rock in Australia that is believed to be as old as Earth itself, forgot its name.

 

[scott1]

*sigh*
Not even animal planet is able to make accurate guesses on how life will be in two million years. The giant squid tale isn't true, it's merely a suggestion.

Same with giant insectoid There's probally no way to tell what Earth will look in 1.5 billion years if there's Earth still exist.

 

[Orefa]

Is there a geologist in the room? How old is Earth? And are we now capable of identifying anything that is 1.5 billion years old? Maybe an old chevy...

 

[DaveC426913]

Well, the Earth is ~5 billion years old.

And as for things being around that long, well, most of Canada is 4 billion years old (Canadian Shield).

So, I guess I just refuted my own claim about nothing lasting that long...

 

[matthyaouw]

There is definitely rock older than 1.5 billion years. Due to its low density and greater thickness, continental crust will only subduct in very small quantities, so is largely preserved. The problem is, these ancient shield areas were probably formed as roots of mountain ranges- largely igneous, so no remains. They are so highly altered by metamorphosism that if there were any remains of life in them, they would be unidentifiable. There are sedimentary rocks surrounding these shields that age in the billions of years, so this suggests that there would probably be something left of the rocks from our age in 1.5bn years, but they may not be very extensive at the surface

 

[daveb]

i heard that twinkies would survive that long.

 

[Andre]

Is there a geologist in the room? How old is Earth? And are we now capable of identifying anything that is 1.5 billion years old? Maybe an old chevy...

http://geology.about.com/od/minerals/a/aa050497zircs.htm

The oldest object on Earth is a grain of zircon that's nearly 4.4 billion years old. It's the only thing we have from deep in the earliest Archean, and it provides evidence that even at that time, Earth had liquid water on it

 

[Mk]

i heard that twinkies would survive that long.

Let's all go to the Twinkie factory after the end of the world. So we don't have to farm.

 

[BobG]

There was a show on NGC in which they said a satellite can stay in proper orbit for 10 years to 15 years depending on how much fuel it has. I guess they come down after that and burn during reentry.
Maybe its a good idea to build something that can withstand the forces of nature for a few billion years... if that's possible.

They must have been talking about a fairly low orbiting satellite (or maybe just giving an average since quite a bit of launch debris winds up in low Earth orbit). The lowest stay up for less than a year. At around 700 km (a popular altitude), they'll stay up for maybe a hundred years. But, at an altitude of just 1500 km, they'll stay up for over 10,000 years.

The only reason for geosynchronous satellites (over 35,000 km high) to come down is because sunlight has made their orbits elliptical enough that atmospheric drag can at least affect the satellite at perigee. After that, it's still a very slow process since most of the orbit is well above any atmospheric drag. I would have to imagine that 1.5 billion years would be more than enough time to do the trick, though.

The Voyager satellites will be the first man made objects to leave the solar system (both are already past Pluto, but are still within the Sun's magnetic field). They'll run out of power around 2020, but that just means we won't be able to communicate them anymore. Both should last until they hit something. Of course, neither are coming back, so there won't be any trace of them on Earth.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Hey I've heard that the shelf life of fruitcake is longer than the life of the shelf. Maybe the fruitcake we get for Christmas will still be around?

 

[Bystander]

"Preservation" depends in large extent on "rapid burial." Keeping this in mind, it's possible that subterranean structures could be sufficiently filled with sediment following abandonment, extinction of the human race, that shapes would be preserved. The "Chunnel," Holland, Lincoln, Logan Island, Harbor (Baltimore), and other already buried tunnels, exist in a wide enough variety of geological domains that it's not unreasonable to expect that some would survive 1.5 Ga of uplift and erosion cycles.

 

[sameandnot]

yeah and cockroaches, too.

 

[matthyaouw]

"Preservation" depends in large extent on "rapid burial."

I know this to be true of biodegradable remains, but I don't think it would be quite as relevant for concrete or building stone remains would it? Granted, erosion & weathering would gradually take place, but they wouldn't just disappear like biological remains.

 

[Bystander]

You want to find it 1.5Ga from now, it had better spend anything over a few ka buried.

 

[Shahil]

Um, how long does plastic last? I once read somewhere that once all us humans are gone, even if it takes a few million years to get rid of all of us, the only thing that will remain are all the plastic we've made.

Hmm...so I'm guessing our insectoids or whatever they are will be able to use our credit cards...

 

[BobG]

Um, how long does plastic last? I once read somewhere that once all us humans are gone, even if it takes a few million years to get rid of all of us, the only thing that will remain are all the plastic we've made.
Hmm...so I'm guessing our insectoids or whatever they are will be able to use our credit cards...

I think decomposition of most plastics are measured in thousands of years, but they will break down - especially if exposed to UV rays.

Teflon lasts a lot longer, but I don't know that it would last 1.5 billion years.

 

[matthyaouw]

You want to find it 1.5Ga from now, it had better spend anything over a few ka buried.

I get the feeling you didn't mean quite as rapid as I thought you did.

 

[surajt88]

"Preservation" depends in large extent on "rapid burial." Keeping this in mind, it's possible that subterranean structures could be sufficiently filled with sediment following abandonment, extinction of the human race, that shapes would be preserved..

Does nobody think we would last forever? I feel we would have colonised the local star cluster in 1.5 Billion years..!

 

[Jobrag]

Slightly off topic but how about the Voyager Spacecraft. As an aside how far away from Earth will they be in 1.5 billion years.

 

[Borek]

As an aside how far away from Earth will they be in 1.5 billion years.

Hard to tell. They go at around 15-17 km/s right now, so if nothing happens they will cover around 53 kly (unless I did some mistake, quite possible). That's about half diameter of our Galaxy - but it doesn't mean that will be the distance from Earth, as both Voyagers and Earth orbit galaxy center, so they don't go in straight lines.

 

[AlephZero]

I know this to be true of biodegradable remains, but I don't think it would be quite as relevant for concrete or building stone remains would it? Granted, erosion & weathering would gradually take place, but they wouldn't just disappear like biological remains.

Concrete doesn't survive for long without regular maintenance. I used to live in a part of the UK where there were lots of disused WWII airfields with concrete runways. After only 50 years, plants are already destroying them.

And there are some concrete tower blocks built in the 1960s that don't look in much better shape than the WWII airfields.

 

[ee1978]

I once read a story on the internet, written by a supposed alien abductee, who said that intelligent insectoids will walk on Earth in 1.5 billion years and find no evidence that humans ever existed.

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805067817/?tag=pfamazon01-20

According to Ward (co-author of the 2000 book on the Rare Earth Hypothesis), this planet's biosphere only will last a few hundred million more years.

 

[Simfish]

Well, the sun's luminosity will increase to the point that the oceans will boil away.

BUT - it is not TOO difficult to put up a solar shield even with today's technology.

Still, even if we do that, life may not survive.

Anyways, this paper just came out, and it's not pretty:

http://www.citeulike.org/user/InquilineKea/article/9198117

Cosmic radiation backgrounds are a constraint on life, and their distribution will affect the Galactic Habitable Zone. Life on Earth has developed in the context of these backgrounds, and characterizing event rates will elaborate the important influences. This in turn can be a base for comparison with other potential life-bearing planets. In this review we estimate the intensities and rates of occurrence of many kinds of strong radiation bursts by astrophysical entities ranging from gamma-ray bursts at cosmological distances to the Sun itself. Many of these present potential hazards to the biosphere: on timescales long compared with human history, the probability of an event intense enough to disrupt life on the land surface or in the oceans becomes large. We enumerate the known sources of radiation and characterize their intensities at the Earth and rates or upper limits on these quantities. When possible, we estimate a "lethal interval", our best estimate of how often a major extinction-level event is probable given the current state of knowledge; we base these estimates on computed or expected depletion of stratospheric ozone. In general, moderate level events are dominated by the Sun, but the far more severe infrequent events are probably dominated by gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. We note for the first time that so-called "short-hard" gamma-ray bursts are a substantial threat, comparable in magnitude to supernovae and greater than that of the higher-luminosity long bursts considered in most past work. Given their precursors, short bursts may come with little or no warning.

 

[Discord7]

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?

The scientific solution to your question should be derived empirically. We will just have to wait and see.

 

[Nik_2213]

Given that Earth's plate tectonics will inexorably move any currently 'protected' area into harm's way, normal erosion, glaciation and, ultimately, subduction will eventually wipe the slate clean...

Perhaps the last evidence to go will be the lunar landers, both US and Russian ??

 

[nesp]

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

1.5 billion is a long time, about 1/3 of the Earth's age. It's unlikely that any human ruins would still be recognizable, but outside of the immediate earth, you might consider geosynchronous satellites or lunar remains such as the Apollo lunar buggy, probably covered by layers upon layers of lunar dust. Assuming whatever intelligence remained was able to do planetary surveillance, spacecraft such as Helios might possibly still be in orbit around the sun.

 

[Borek]

Given that Earth's plate tectonics will inexorably move any currently 'protected' area into harm's way, normal erosion, glaciation and, ultimately, subduction will eventually wipe the slate clean...

Perhaps the last evidence to go will be the lunar landers, both US and Russian ??

Between oldest fossils known are these from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunflint_Chert - over 2 billion years.

The oldest known rock from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills is around 3Ga, quite likely there are no fossils older than 2Ga just because there was nothing that could be fossilized.

If tectonics stops in less than 3 Ga from now (and there are reasons to believe it may happen much sooner), some remnants of what's around us should be still left.

 

[AtomicJoe]

They are likely to wonder were all the man made satellites came from

 

[Jobrag]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

They are likely to wonder were all the man made satellites came from

The orbital paths of satellites are not perfectly stable. After 1.5GY they will all either have flown off or burnt up in the atmosphere.

 

[Ophiolite]

Technology involves manipulation of natural materials, thereby creating unique, unnatural chemical combinations. These would leave massive geochemical signatures that any self respecting insectoid geochemist would immediately recognise. Land fill sites, urban remains, nuclear waste, all of these would tell a tale of a civiisation half glimpsed through the mists of time.

 

[WhoWee]

I once read a story on the internet, written by a supposed alien abductee, who said that intelligent insectoids will walk on Earth in 1.5 billion years and find no evidence that humans ever existed.

My question is:
If all humans were to go extinct right now, what would be left of our civilisation in 1.5 billion years?
Would a humanlike intelligence find and be able to recognise any ruins of things we built?

Assuming we don't go extinct now - shouldn't 1.5 Billion years be adequate time to figure out how to survive?

 

[DaveC426913]

Assuming we don't go extinct now - shouldn't 1.5 Billion years be adequate time to figure out how to survive?

Since the premise of the question is "if all humans were to go extrinct right now..." then 1.5 billion years would not be long enough for our lifeless, worm-riddled corpses to figure out how to survive, no.

 

[WhoWee]

Since the premise of the question is "if all humans were to go extrinct right now..." then 1.5 billion years would not be long enough for our lifeless, worm-riddled corpses to figure out how to survive, no.

I imagine the cause of our extinction would be relevant to possible outcomes.

 

[DaveC426913]

I imagine the cause of our extinction would be relevant to possible outcomes.

That is a separate question.

There's a show on TV right now called Life After People that explores the very question the OP is asking. It walks through what happens to the Earth a day, a week, a month, years, and centuries after humans mysteriously vanish without a trace. It's actually a really interesting show. The logjam of rusting laker ships breaking loose and going over Niagara Falls is powerful.

How humans disappear is deliberately not addressed so that the focus on the show is specifically about 'what happens to Earth without us', not about some asteriod, or volcanic eruption, which would muddy the thought experiment.

 

[Evo]

Well, the episode about Queen Elizabeth's corgies tearing Buckingham Palace apart and drinking out of all of the toilets just turned me off to the series. I couldn't take it serious after that.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well, the episode about Queen Elizabeth's corgies tearing Buckingham Palace apart and drinking out of all of the toilets just turned me off to the series. I couldn't take it serious after that.

I remember reading an Asimov novel years ago where some travellers visited a world where the human inhabitants had become extinct some time before. An interesting oversight of the travellers was that the former inhabitants pets now roamed the cities as feral territorial predators.

What I think would be quite interesting is how animals could evolve to live in abandoned human settlements, much like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito" AKA the London Underground Mosquito.

 

[WhoWee]

Well, the episode about Queen Elizabeth's corgies tearing Buckingham Palace apart and drinking out of all of the toilets just turned me off to the series. I couldn't take it serious after that.

I believe that was the last episode we watched as well.

 

[Evo]

I remember reading an Asimov novel years ago where some travellers visited a world where the human inhabitants had become extinct some time before. An interesting oversight of the travellers was that the former inhabitants pets now roamed the cities as feral territorial predators.

What I think would be quite interesting is how animals could evolve to live in abandoned human settlements, much like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito" AKA the London Underground Mosquito.

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever. Maybe I just caught the worst episodes. They could have made an interesting series about how things would eventually break down without upkeep, but they thought they had to make it over the top ridiculous to attract viewers.

I believe that was the last episode we watched as well.

Yeah, I'd rather rub jalapenos in my eyes than watch that series.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever.

don't worry I wasn't disputing that. It sounds foolish, as if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Emmerich" made a documentary.

 

[DaveC426913]

Sorry, I should have explained that it was the worst-silliest-poorly made tv show ever. Maybe I just caught the worst episodes. They could have made an interesting series about how things would eventually break down without upkeep, but they thought they had to make it over the top ridiculous to attract viewers.

Yeah, I'm not sure we are talking about the same show.