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Cars in the (Long) Future

I came this across this passage in Jan Zalasiewicz’ book The Earth After Us, which takes a very long geologic view of the planet — 100 million years in the future (“we would almost certainly have died out long before then”). While our roads might be well preserved under layers of sediment, future archaeologists, it seems, may have to rely on written or pictoral records, or inference, to understand teh actual machines that traveled on them.

The wheeled transport machines that now run in such numbers along them may also fare rather poorly as regards long-term preservation. Were they made of ceramic, concrete or bone they would fossilize, perhaps even rather well. But iron and mild steel easily rust at the surface, and corrode and dissolve in the chemically reducing conditions of burial, while the compaction would crush the structure as effectively as the jaws of a breaker’s yard; rubber and plastic would carbonize, and glass devitrify. It would take some more than averagely good preservation to discern that there were even rotating wheels, and yet more to show that their rotation carried the whole contraption along the ground surface.

I suppose this means, contra Planet of the Apes, the Statue of Liberty won’t make it either.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under Etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Cars in the (Long) Future”

Yokota Fritz Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I doubt if even the roads will be detectable 100 million years hence. This is video of me biking on a Santa Cruz County road that was closed about 30 years ago — it’s not much more than a walking trail after even that short time.
Paul Johnson Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
On the flip side, there’s long sections of the Barlow Road abandoned when US26 opened over Mt Hood on the west side of the mountain, offically open to the public as an unmaintained cycleway (fallen trees block the road every few dozen meters), but the pavement is in good condition (despite harsh mountain weather) and the original painted pavement markings still stand out clearly since most cyclists hover just right of the centerlines as the road edges aren’t clearly visible through the moss that covers most of the pavement. Not sure exactly when US26 opened, but it’s definitely before my lifetime.
Bob Says:
November 7th, 2009 at 11:57 am
The Amazon link is wrong; here’s the intended link: http://www.amazon.com/Earth-After-Us-Legacy-Humans/dp/0199214980/
marty Says:
November 8th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Well, here in northern il., the road I biked upon that was closed
about 40 years ago was, in places, totally destroyed by the elements.
It even had a couple of cars in the ditch, pretty much the only thing
remaining were the frame, engine/trans, and the differential.
Location is key…it rains often here, with lots of leaf-litter to promote decay…
Tyler Brown Says:
November 9th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I remember reading in a similar book that the statue of liberty has excellent chances of post-human survival, due to the way in which copper rusts and the excellent chance it has of going underwater.
Richard Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Lets not write ourselves off just yet. If we get our stuff together, there is no reason why we can’t survive 100 million years. We just have to stop being so self centred and wasteful and actually care about the future. Kicking the car habit will definitely help with our long-term survival.

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Cars in the (Long) Future

6 Responses to “Cars in the (Long) Future”

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