Frank, Schmidt Publish 2018 Silurian Hypothesis Paper on Prior Earth Civilizations
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jul 25
Frank, Schmidt Publish 2018 Silurian Hypothesis Paper on Prior Earth Civilizations
2 articles · Updated · CNN · Jul 25
Summary
A 2018 paper by Adam Frank and Gavin Schmidt asks whether an industrial civilization that lived millions of years ago could have vanished while leaving only faint geological traces.
Their thought experiment grew from parallels with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 55 million years ago, when temperatures jumped up to 15 degrees Fahrenheit after a massive carbon release of still-uncertain cause.
The paper argues direct evidence would be hard to find because cities and artifacts erode, tectonics recycle crust, and a civilization lasting 100,000 years would be a brief blip in 400 million years of complex life.
Instead, the researchers point to chemical signatures—carbon shifts, plastics, persistent pollutants, artificial hormones and heavy metals—that future sediments might preserve from an energy-intensive society like ours.
Frank and Schmidt say they do not believe such a prior civilization existed, but the hypothesis probes whether technological societies can avoid climate-driven collapse; geologist Jan Zalasiewicz says modern industrial civilization would likely leave a clearer fossil footprint.
Will our indestructible plastics and heavy metals be the only surviving proof that humanity existed millions of years from now?
Could the mysterious, rapid global warming event 55 million years ago be the fossilized footprint of Earth's first industrial society?
If a highly advanced ancient civilization achieved perfect sustainability, would their success make them completely invisible in Earth’s geological record today?