The Fossils of the 21st Century

The Fossils of the 21st Century

In 100 million years, human civilization will have bit the dust. Perhaps a nuclear war scorched the planet, or a last-ditch bid to solve climate change backfired horribly. Or, more optimistically, we overcame the myriad challenges of the 21st century, took to the stars and evolved into new species on alien worlds. Either way, what you and I consider humans will have long since vanished, our memories lost to the grinding colossus of time.

The Earth, however, doesn’t forget so easily. Whatever eschatological fate awaits us, some of the marks we’ve left on our planet’s surface will last for eons. We’ve flattened mountaintops; bored holes deep into Earth’s crust to extract precious fuels; drained lakes and re-routed rivers. And then there’s all the stuff we’ve churned out—trillions upon trillions of tons of it, from cell phones to skyscrapers to chickens—some of which will become part of the geologic record, too.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-fossils-of-the-21st-century-1830693850
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-fossils-of-the-21st-century-1830693850