4 ms·
That's 28000lbs (14000kg) for every human on Earth. Mind-boggling. The technosphere (aka Anthroposhere) is estimated at 30 trillion tons. https://en.wikipedia.
by titzer 7y ago
That's 28000lbs (14000kg) for every human on Earth. Mind-boggling. The technosphere (aka Anthroposhere) is estimated at 30 trillion tons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposphere
- njarboe 7y agoThis is impressive, but just one meter of dirt covering the surface of the earth is about 1.2 million trillion tons. 30 trillion tons would create a layer about 0.03mm thick. Invisible in a geologic sense.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoBut the amount of dirt we have to turn over to find the 'good stuff' is maybe orders of magnitude bigger?
- titzer 7y agoMy calculations don't match yours. Here http://www.bluebulbprojects.com/MeasureOfThings/results.php?p=1&comp=area&unit=m2&amt=148940000000000&sort=pr http://www.bluebulbprojects.com/MeasureOfThings/results.php?... That says there are 148 trillion square meters of land area on earth. So the technosphere (at 30 trillion tons) is about 1/5ton per square meter, or about 200 kg. If you use the all of the Earth's surface, it's 510 trillion square meters, so about 1/17th of a ton per square meter, or about 58 kg per square meter.
- clmul 7y agoAssuming the dirt weighs about 2 tons per cubic meter, this corresponds to 58 kg/m^2 / 2000 kg/m^3 =~ 0.03 m, so it seems like the gp just used the incorrect unit.
- njarboe 7y agoYou are correct. I had 1000000000 as a trillion. Scientific notation is a much better way to calculate things. At 30mm that is a big enough layer that a geologist could see it in the rock record, if it looked different enough.
- thfuran 7y agoI believe that we've spewed enough radiation that no visual distinction would necessary for detection, at least for the next several tens of thousands of years.
- titzer 7y agoIt's true that atmospheric nuclear testing has produced trace elements that were basically never on Earth before 1945, like Strontium-90 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90]. Strontium-90 has a half life of about 29 years, so it will be detectable for a few thousand years or so. Some others last longer.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]