Life After People

[Coyote]

It'd be interesting to see how missile silos, mountain bunkers like NORAD, and other hardened civil defense shelters might do.

Ironically, some of our best-preserved stuff may be the shipwrecks that went deep into the cold, low-oxygen areas. If anyone thinks to look there, that is. The only real concern they have is being buried in sediment from underwater slides or eruptions.

[LadyTevar]

Well, there's one bridge that won't rust away easily: The New River Gorge Bridge at Fayetteville WV. It's made of Cor-Ten, aka "Weathering Steel". The idea is that the steel-alloy's rust forms a protective, weather-proof coating over the steel, preventing further degradation.

[Swindle1984]

There's always the stuff we left on the moon.

How long would bronze statues last?

Greek and Roman buildings, statues, and even roads have survived for thousands of years. I'm sure modern things of similar construction would last quite a while too. Granted, most of the ancient artifacts (especially buildings and roads) have survived because they were preserved or in constant use, but still.

[FSTargetDrone]

Someone a page or two back asked about pets. The next new episode on Tuesday will cover some more of that topic:

The post-apocalyptic fate of our cars, planes and roads. Oil refineries turn into time bombs. In the Motor City, harsh northern winters dismantles auto headquarters. While in Texas, the Alamo succumbs to a new invader. Also, animals adapt: armadillos spread, some dogs rekindle their hunting instincts, and long-horn cattle flourish once again.

And for those interested, there are two full episodes (the 2 most recent, I think) available to watch here. I don't know if it will work for those of you outside the US.

[PeZook]

An interesting question would be: how long would it take untill a hypothetical alien archeological expedition would be completely unable to find any evidence of an advanced human civilization?

[CaptainChewbacca]

An interesting question would be: how long would it take untill a hypothetical alien archeological expedition would be completely unable to find any evidence of an advanced human civilization?

Depends on what you feel constitutes evidence. It may take a glacier to completely erase mount rushmore. Our fossils will ALWAYS be there, bits of plastic and teeth with fillings and suchlike.

[PeZook]

Something that points to industry being present on the planet. Plastic was my bet for "the smoking gun" which alien archeologists could present in a published article to show their peers that Earth once had industrial-scale technology. Titanium alloys would be good as well.

Though if they could dig out a preserved airplane from under a hill...now that would be a discovery!

[CaptainChewbacca]

There will be buried evidence of roadways and utility lines, those will last in elemental form for hundreds of thousands of years.

Alien archaeologist: And we've discovered the best way to find remnant cities from the inhabitants of Usag-3 is to trace their gridlike transit system. They had very sophisticated means of moving goods and resources, so if you search the perimeter of a settlement you will eventually find a route to another one. Two of the nation-states most prolific in this were the empires known as 'United Regions of America' and 'Deutchland'.

[Majin Gojira]

I generally watch to see what they say about animal survival after Mankind's end. With zoo animals being the big unknown, I sometimes question some of their conclusions (just how much cold/low temperatures can an Elephant take anyway?).

[SAMAS]

Thick fat (or the potential for such) and the fact that their ancestors did. Although maybe they already do in the zoos.

Though I imagine they would do better in the southern portions of the country, where the winters are milder.

[FSTargetDrone]

I generally watch to see what they say about animal survival after Mankind's end. With zoo animals being the big unknown, I sometimes question some of their conclusions (just how much cold/low temperatures can an Elephant take anyway?).

If they can get out of the zoos, they may simply migrate south. I think that was speculated in one of the shows, or perhaps the special. If they can't get out of the zoos, it won't matter because they will soon starve.

[Big Orange]

Forget about aliens, how about intelligent life evolving on this planet to fill the void left by us? Who's the best candidate? According to The Future is Wild there is the possibility of Cephalopods having descendents evolve into land dwelling tool users, since today they already have moderately complex brains and highly dexterous appendages, although there are highly evolved great apes around today who could replace us within several million years.

[Commander 598]

Forget about aliens, how about intelligent life evolving on this planet to fill the void left by us? Who's the best candidate? According to The Future is Wild there is the possibility of Cephalopods having descendents evolve into land dwelling tool users, since today they already have moderately complex brains and highly dexterous appendages, although there are highly evolved great apes around today who could replace us within several million years.

I vote crows as they are already quite prolific and display impressive intelligence.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but they have a big disadvantage: being natural fliers, there's a practical limit on how big their brains can get before they lose the ability to fly. Intelligence is an evolutionary advantage, but at Paleolithic tech levels, I'm not sure it's a big enough advantage to compensate for everything a bird loses when you ground it.
________

I'd vote on apes over cephalopods, mostly on the grounds of "if it happened once it can happen twice." Of course, this assumes that apes survive an event that somehow kills everyone in Central Africa... not so likely, now that I think about it.

If not the apes, then my money's on a descendant of one of the more social mammals, such as the wolf/wild dog line.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'd vote for Raccoons, personally.

[Erik von Nein]

Yes, but they have a big disadvantage: being natural fliers, there's a practical limit on how big their brains can get before they lose the ability to fly. Intelligence is an evolutionary advantage, but at Paleolithic tech levels, I'm not sure it's a big enough advantage to compensate for everything a bird loses when you ground it.

Says who? So far New Caledonian crows (while certainly the highest end on the intelligence scale for crows) have demonstrated that they can reason casually better than apes. And, as we're finding out, crows also can learn from each other, so when one picks up an impressive skill they'll teach and/or steal from each other until most of them have that skill. It's quite likely they'd be able to out-survive ape species than the other way around.

Of course, either species will only develop human-like intelligence if it's actually reproductively advantageous to do so. There's a reason why it took to so long for us to evolve in the first place.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Even plastic breaks down after a couple million years of hard natural weathering, or at least nearly all the plastic used. As for the species most likely to replace us, the most obvious selection is the Orangutans, who demonstrate advanced problem-solving and tool-using skills, have prehensile digits, have greater genetic diversity and surviveability than chimps (who are likely to go extinct soon without support) and could fit the gap left by Humans more easily than any non-Ape-like species. Cephalopods are intelligent, but it would take aeons merely to get them on to land, if they would adapt to it at all while retaining their great big brains which are bouyant and easier to carry in water, while Crows are too small, their Avian character limiting, and their lack of prehensile digits crippling. It would take a long, strange time for a bird species to evolve enough to fit into Man's ecological niche.

[loomer]

What about the remote prospect of roving packs of city-chimps, still capable of using a limited amount of human technology as well as the slowly evolving populations outside of the cities? With cities with large chimp populations likely to have a couple of privately owned specimens trained to use some technology as well as zoos, we could be looking at a form of 'chimpanzee renaissance' within a couple of generations.

That or a lot of dead chimps.

[Cykeisme]

Of course, either species will only develop human-like intelligence if it's actually reproductively advantageous to do so. There's a reason why it took to so long for us to evolve in the first place.

Indeed.. as I recall, it was a rather rare and specific set of circumstances in the African plains (rapid repeated climatic change, iirc) that applied selective pressure toward greater intelligence.

It may simply not happen again before our sun goes nuts.

[Akhlut]

There will be buried evidence of roadways and utility lines, those will last in elemental form for hundreds of thousands of years.

The roadways will be gone totally in a century in northern climates, as freeze-thaw cycles smash them apart and plants start to colonize those cracks. Roads would be indistinguishable from the forests and plains surrounding them. And, even in more southerly climates, there are cracks that plants would exploit and, though it'd take longer, they'd also soon be covered with plants. Especially as road drainages are clogged and roads flood over, get silted over and buried and eaten by plants. Deserts will cover them with sand (or grind them down with sand if they aren't covered first). Near oceans, salt and surf will eat them away.

Utility lines aren't going to be much better off. Metals will degrade within centuries and plastics will wear away and photodegrade. Wooden utility poles will rot in decades without maintenence. All of them are likely to fall over from wind in a few decades, and birdshit will only help accellerate their demise (high ammonia and salts are never kind to anything).

Only bronze statues, precious metals, our space junk on other planets or not in earth's orbit, and our mortal remains will be around for more than a thousand years, really.

[Akhlut]

Well, there's one bridge that won't rust away easily: The New River Gorge Bridge at Fayetteville WV. It's made of Cor-Ten, aka "Weathering Steel". The idea is that the steel-alloy's rust forms a protective, weather-proof coating over the steel, preventing further degradation.

The article says that salts can still ruin the steel though, and birdshit's high concentration of salts might eventually undo the New River Gorge Bridge. It might take a while, but it might do it in in a thousand years or so.