
Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz Takes The Reader One Hundred Million Years Into The Future, Long After The Human Race Became Extinct, To Explore What Will Remain Of Humanity's Brief But Dramatic Sojourn On Planet Earth. He Tells How Geologists In The Far Future - Perhaps An Alien Species Re-discovering Earth - Might Piece Together The History Of The Planet, And Slowly Decipher The Fact Of Humanity's Existence, Activities, And Ultimate Extinction From The Traces We Will Leave Impressed In The Rock Strata. The Earth After Us Takes This Novel Approach To Show How Geologists Unravel The Information In The Rocks. As The Alien Scientists Start Investigating The Strata, What Story Will They Tell Of Us? What Kind Of Fossils Will Humans Leave Behind? What Will Happen To Cities, Cars, And Plastic Cups? How Thick A Layer Will The 'human Stratum' Be? And Will It Be Obvious Which Species Dominated The Planet? It Reveals A Story Of An Environmental Crisis Similar In Scale To Even Earlier Mass Extinction Events, Yet Puzzlingly Different: A Crisis Where Extinctions Were Accompanied By A Bizarre Global Merry-go-round Of Organisms And By Sharp Perturbations Of Climate. The Trail Leads Finally To The Bones Of The Inhabitants Of Petrified Cities That Have Lain Deep Underground For Many Millions Of Years. As Thought-provoking As It Is Engaging, This Book Simultaneously Explains Both The Geological Mechanisms That Shape Our Planet, And Also Offers A Perspective On Humanity And Its Actions That May Prove To Be More Objective Than Any Other. For Our Final Legacy, Zalasiewicz Argues, Will Provide The Ultimate Verdict On Our Species And On Our Relationship To Planet Earth.
What physical evidence will human civilization leave behind in the geological record one hundred million years after our extinction? Geologist Jan Zalasiewicz utilizes his expertise in stratigraphy to construct a speculative framework for how future scientists might interpret the remnants of the Anthropocene. By projecting current human industrial and environmental impacts into the deep time of the geological record, he illustrates how our material culture, climate alterations, and biological shifts will manifest as a distinct layer in the Earth's crust.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts and readers alike praise this work for its ability to translate complex geological concepts into a compelling, long-term narrative about human impact. It is frequently cited as a foundational text for understanding the Anthropocene from a strictly stratigraphic and scientific viewpoint.
Page Count:
272
Publication Date:
2008-01-01
ISBN-10:
0191550493
ISBN-13:
9780191550492
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!