Here's the Jenkins cut. The photo must have been taken from the air because it is impossible to get this vantage from the ground.
The cut continues down thw mountain and opens to a very large heavily cut intersection.
Posted on 10/20/2008 10:23:55 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
[The author] takes the perspective of alien explorers arriving on earth - their geologists study the layers of rock, using the many clues to piece together its history over several billion years...
Dr Zalasiewicz said: "From the perspective of 100 million years in the future – a geologist's view – the reign of humans on Earth would seem very short: we would almost certainly have died out long before then. What footprint will we leave in the rocks? What would have become of our great cities, our roads and tunnels, our cars, our plastic cups in the far distant future? What fossils would we leave behind? ...
"Looking to the distant future gives us a warning for the present: our activities have already left a significant footprint on the planet, and not a flattering one. It is not too late to limit it. We would not wish to be dubbed by future explorers the 'amazingly clever and utterly foolish two-legged ape'."
Zalasiewicz's book "The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave In The Rocks?" is published by Oxford University Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
The human legacy left in the rock is the rock that is missing. As you travel Eastern Kentucky and to a lesser extent SW Virginia, there are massive cuts through the solid rock. These cuts are often several hundred feet deep and wide enough to accommodate a 4 lane hiway and often a major cloverleaf intersection.
The geology is there for easy viewing. The multihued strata tell the tale of the eons required fot the sedimentary rock to be laid down.
One spectacular cut is on US 23 after you cross the mountain from Pound Virginia and head down to Jenkins Kentucky. The rock removal in this massive cut and intersection is mind bobbling.
Nearby, whole mountains have been sheared and truncated by stripmine operations. Future geologists will be amazed by these huge operations. They will also stumble on the mine shafts and coal mines that go on and on and on.
The human legacy left in the rock is the rock that is missing. As you travel Eastern Kentucky and to a lesser extent SW Virginia, there are massive cuts through the solid rock. These cuts are often several hundred feet deep and wide enough to accommodate a 4 lane hiway and often a major cloverleaf intersection.
The geology is there for easy viewing. The multihued strata tell the tale of the eons required fot the sedimentary rock to be laid down.
One spectacular cut is on US 23 after you cross the mountain from Pound Virginia and head down to Jenkins Kentucky. The rock removal in this massive cut and intersection is mind bobbling.
Nearby, whole mountains have been sheared and truncated by stripmine operations. Future geologists will be amazed by these huge operations. They will also stumble on the mine shafts and coal mines that go on and on and on.
The text described their theories regarding the single object that appeared to be most widespread and most revered. After all, steel had rusted, concrete crumbled, and this one thing had endured. (The enviro-nuts hadn't enforced plastic bags as a means of saving forests at the time the piece was written).
Must have been religious, some sort of sacrificial basin or font.
The serpentine tunnel at bottom might be a symbolic tunnel to the underworld or afterlife.
It must have been a prized family icon because it was obviously expensive to build such a long lasting object.
And so forth until they'd "scientifically" elevated a standard flush toilet to symbolize modern western civilization.
What it would mean to life would be large asteroids would be the least of a planet's worries. Collision with other planets would be a constant hazard and stars would absorb each other. To an outside observer it would resemble a cosmic game of billiards.
Here's the Jenkins cut. The photo must have been taken from the air because it is impossible to get this vantage from the ground.
The cut continues down thw mountain and opens to a very large heavily cut intersection.
Our species can survive in the middle of the desert and the in the frozen north. I think we would be kind of hard to wipe out. Sure, changing conditions could wipe out a great deal of us, but we don’t need that many survivors to start all over again.
And they'd still be fresh.
"The chromium alloys that give stainless steel its resilience, however, will probably continue to do so for millennia, especially if the pots, pans, and carbon-tempered cutlery are buried out of the reach of atmospheric oxygen. One hundred thousand years hence, the intellectual development of whatever creature digs them up might be kicked abruptly to a higher evolutionary plane by the discovery of ready-made tools. Then again, lack of knowledge of how to duplicate them could be a demoralizing frustration--or an awe-arousing mystery that ignites religious consciousness."
I betcha it was this:
bump
FReeper lawdave recommended this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/653287/posts?page=88#88
Early in the year I got it from the library and read it, not bad. I’m not a big fan of reading fiction.
:’D
This makes two books I need to buy based on today's FR threads (see PIG to Civil War elsewhere) even though I've yet to finish the last batch.
(Tanx)
You say that as if it’s *not* true... ;’)
According to the History Channel, about the only thing we will leave behind are the Egyptian pyramids and Mt. Rushmore. Everything else (buildings included) are totally wiped in less than 5,000 years.
Future archaeologists will find boxes of unsold books on what the future will be like and put them in the humor/fiction section of their libraries.
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