Science has spoken: Chicken bones and plastic bags will be our legacy for future civilizations!

The dinosaurs have left us spectacular skeletons, we will leave plastic bags and bones of nuggets. For centuries, paleontologists have been studying fossils to reconstruct the history of the earth. So far, these traces of the past consisted of bones, shells and imprints left by living organisms. But a new category of fossils is starting to emerge: technofossils.

In their discarded book: How Technofossils Will Be Our Ultimate Legacy, Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz, researchers at the University of Leicester, demonstrate that the waste from our civilization –plastic, concrete, aluminum, synthetic clothes – will lasting geological strata lastingly. In millions of years, they will become the fossilized witnesses of the Anthropocene, when human activity has profoundly changed the planet. This observation raises a disturbing question: will our main heritage for the future be only immense petrified dump?

Plastic and aluminum: omnipresent fossils

Plastic has become an indelible marker of the anthropocene. According to Sarah Gabbott, ” It is incredibly durable ”. She explains At The Conversation: “We produce astronomical quantities and it is dispersed all over the planet ». Each year, more than 400 million tonnes of plastic are manufactured. A large part ends in the environment in the form of waste. In the oceans, floating plastics fragmented as microplastics that accumulate in marine sediments, creating a durable chemical and physical imprint. Trapped under layers of mud and sand, these polymers could persist for millions of years. They would form a distinct layer in future geological strata. Researchers already note the presence of plastiglomerateshybrid rocks merging sand, shellfish and melted plastic.

Aluminum is a geological anomaly. In its purest, it is practically nonexistent in nature, because it is always combined with other elements. However, in just 70 years, humanity has produced more than 500 million tonnes. With, we could cover a large part of the United States with a thin layer of aluminum. Jan Zalasiewicz explains that this metal, although subject to oxidation, will leave separate traces in future strata.

The cans thrown into the environment, for example, will undergo gradual alteration. But they will print characteristic cavities in the rock, lined with clay minerals from their corrosion. These training courses will constitute a single geological marker. They will point out the explosion of industrial production and mass consumption specific to our time. Wiring of electronic devices could also draw attention. The minerals that are formed from the copper are shiny and colorful, from azurite to malachite via bornite.

The invasion of chickens and synthetic clothes

After all, if our cans and plastic bags cross the ages, it becomes coherent that our nuggets and leggings in polyester do the same.

The industrialization of chicken breeding has turned the biological balance of the planet upset. It has created an artificially prolific and morphologically altered species. With around 25 billion living specimens at any time, Gallus Gallus Domesticus is today the most abundant vertebrate animal in earthly history. It largely surpasses all wild species. “” Their bones will be omnipresent in the fossil register “, Underlines Jan Zalasiewicz. However, these bones will not look like those of traditional birds. Their fragile bone structure makes them subject to osteoporosis and deformations. Their skeletons, often fractured, reflect the intensive conditions in which they are high. They are buried en masse in discharges and landfill sites. Their leftovers could fossilize much more effectively than those of many wild species. This will offer future paleontologists a striking vision of human food industrialization.

Synthetic clothes are another fossilized anthropocene marker. Unlike natural fibers such as cotton, flax or wool, which quickly degrade under the action of microbes and insects, synthetic textiles, made from oil derivatives, have exceptional resistance. Each year, more than 100 billion clothes are produced, often thrown after a few uses. “” Our polyester clothes could cross the ages. Some old fossil algae have layers of plastic polymers, and these lasted, beautifully preserved, for several million years Said Sarah Gabbott. Certain textile fragments, tablets in the sedimentary strata, could even fossilize, forming imprints as distinct as those left by leaves or fingerprints of dinosaurs in the rock.

Fossil cities and underground scars

If future civilizations were to exhume whole cities, they would find massive strata of concrete. “” Each year, we produce enough concrete to provide four tonnes to each human being on earth “Recall Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz. This material, composed of sand, gravel and calcined cement, is designed to last. He naturally fossilizes himself, just like the sedimentary rocks he imitates. Certain cities such as New Orleans or New York slowly sink under sea level. They will then probably be the first to be preserved in geological depths. Under layers of mud and sediment, their buildings, roads and infrastructure will become fossilized urban footprints. Issues comparable to the buried cities discovered in the strata of ancient civilizations.

But our geological heritage is not limited to buildings. The most discreet marks, although deeply engraved in the earth, are also the most revealing of our passage. In a century, humanity has erected more than 50 million kilometers of wells to extract oil and gas. We have perforated the earth's crust at extreme depths. These tunnels, now empty, will form artificial geological cavities, visible over millions of years. Even more striking, underground nuclear explosions have left indelible footprints. Huge vitrified caves, created by extreme temperatures, and detectable radioactive signatures in future terrestrial strata. These scars, invisible on the surface, but inscribed in depth, will constitute one of the most durable and irrefutable testimonies of the anthropocene.

A fossilized warning

To imagine our waste as the fossils of the future has something to make you smile … yellow. While we admire the remains of dinosaurs in museums, future paleontologists are likely to exhume strata filled with plastic bags, cans and bone of nuggets. Perhaps one day, an extraterrestrial civilization will discover the earth and wonder which strange people venerated polyester and aluminum to the point of lining their planet. Especially since future paleontologists are more likely to find the remains of our farm cattle, which weighs largely heavier than us.

The wiring of electronic devices. © Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz

Finally, we are building our own “Jurassic Park”, but with PET bottles and reinforced concrete in place of pterosaurs and trilobites. Becoming aware of this absurd geological heritage is perhaps the best way to measure the extent of our impact. After all, leaving grand monuments to future generations is good. Bequeath to them a planet transformed into a fossilized discharge, it is immediately less glorious.