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Prior Indigenous Technological Species
- shshhdhs 9y agoWhat does the journal comment mean? ""Accepted for publication in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Manuscript refused by Astriobology without review as "outside of the purview" the journal"" Accepted but refused confuses me. Anyone know?
- grzm 9y agoThey're two separate journals: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology_(journal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology_(journal) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Astrobiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Astro... You're not the first to be confused :) The first line of each Wikipedia article is "Not to be confused with [the other journal]."
- oldmancoyote 9y agoAs a geologist I want to emphasize how scanty is the exposure of terrestrial(dry land) landscape within the geological record. Assuming we are talking about a terrestrial species, the available geological record is mostly volcanic flows and sand seas (like the Sahara) of huge extent. The surface of the Earth is mostly an erosional surface not a depositional one. Ironically, the best place to find terrestrial fossils is within lake beds (not really terrestrial at all). As metals do not last on the geological time scale, I think that the most likely evidence would be ceramic fragments or stone structures, but I believe there is too little exposure of suitable habitat and the likelihood of noticing any evidence as might be exposed too slight to say anything about the lack of geological evidence.
- impostervt 9y agoAny idea what the oldest piece of land on earth is that has been continuously dry?
- oldmancoyote 9y agoThe oldest part of the continents are probably what you're looking for. South central Africa, corresponding parts of Brazil, Australia, and parts of eastern Canada are all very old, multiple billions of years old. But really, these are VERY old areas. Lots of things have happened to them in that much time. Some of them were undoubtedly wet.
- stcredzero 9y agoI really like Issac Arthur's treatment of this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fLNvpl0c8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fLNvpl0c8 The easiest technological species to detect for the longest time would be space-faring species that leave behind structures on airless moons. Note that even these traces aren't eternal. Micro-meteoroids and meteoroids will eventually erode even those.
- fao_ 9y agoThank you for the video. I haven't seen this video series before, but it seems interesting!
- genpfault 9y agoAh yes, PRIOR TENANT[1]. With apologies to Stross[2] :) [1]: https://everything2.com/title/PRIOR+TENANT https://everything2.com/title/PRIOR+TENANT [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files
- jlebrech 9y agomaybe we could detect space "chemtrails" to know if other species have developed faster than light travel.
- JoeDaDude 9y agoI've often considered that I should consign my mortal remains to become a fossil, but I would carry with me some object that proved I was a member of a technological society, something like a wooden abacus that would fossilize along with the rest of my corpse.
- oldmancoyote 9y agoHow hard would it be to detect evidence of previous earth-based intelligent species? The people of Chaco canyon lived about 1000 years ago. They build an extensive system of stone paved roads. From personal experience I can say that the wind-blown sand and desert vegetation make it impossible to recognize these roads on the surface. These roads were first recognized from aerial photographs. BUT, they were first discovered many years before by a researcher who saw the profile of a road in an excavation. He published a photo in a paper that included the wry note that they looked just like a road.