The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?

268 Pages·2009·3.17 MB·English

by  Jan Zalasiewicz

Th e Earth After Us
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Th e Earth After Us
What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?
Jan Zalasiewicz
with contributions from
Kim Freedman
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox dp
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© Jan Zalasiewicz 2008
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Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2008
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Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
ISBN 978–0–19–921497–6
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To my parents, and to the
late John Norton of Ludlow Museum.
Th ey provided the start.
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Geological timeline x
Prologue xiii
1 Perspective 1
2 100 Million Years AD 7
3 Th e Strata Machine 13
4 Tectonic Escalator 37
5 High Water, Low Water 59
6 Dynasties 87
7 Echoes 119
8 Traces 159
9 Body of Evidence 191
10 Meeting the People 219
Further Reading 243
Index 247
vii
Acknowledgements
Th is book has been an unconscionably long—almost geological—time in
the writing. I’d like to thank, fi rst, Gabrielle Walker, then at New Scientist,
who encouraged an early essay on this theme (also written with contribu-
tions from Kim Freedman, who has a rare skill at bringing palaeontology
to life). Gabrielle encouraged further forays into this kind of writing, as did
Jimmy Leach at the Education Guardian and Phil Donoghue at the Paleon-
tological Association. Latha Menon’s editing of this book at OUP was done
with great skill and tact (gently removing those baroque sections that I
would otherwise have deeply regretted subsequently); the overall shape
of this book owes much to her. Her colleagues at OUP (too numerous to
mention individually: I little realised how complex a business is the publish-
ing of a book) were likewise all a pleasure to work with.
Th e whole or parts of this book have been read by my colleagues includ-
ing Roy Clements, Peter Friend, John Hudson, Adrian Rushton, Alan Smith,
Alex Page, Kip Jeff rey and Ryszard Kryza, while Andy Gale also gave advice
on an early draft of one particularly intricate section. Th eir corrections of
my unforced errors, and suggestions for additions and amendments, were
invaluable—though they hold no responsibility for the content, and espe-
cially for the more speculative parts of it. Th e blame there is mine alone.
Th e idea was to explain the workings of the science of stratigraphy through
the future of humankind and of the fruits of its industry. Whether or not
this has worked will be for you, the reader, to decide.
More generally, my writing was shaped through the tradition of re-
peated editing at the British Geological Survey. Th ere was Tony Bazley’s
precision and patience in my early days, for instance; one gets it right, even-
tually. Adrian Rushton, peerless in the infi nitely complex world of strati-
graphical palaeontology and also in fi nding the mot juste, was endlessly
encouraging, as was Tony Reedman in wider aspects of geology. As regards
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
the science itself, my colleagues down the years—perhaps in particular
those with whom I have investigated rocks old and young and those of
the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London—have
provided me with an indispensable and urbane education in this most
misunderstood of subjects. So too have the colleagues—Mike Branney,
Sarah Gabbott, Mark Williams et al.—with whom I work at the University
of Leicester’s Department of Geology. Elsewhere, Barrie Rickards has been
a mainstay of graptolite science for me and many others, Ryszard Kryza has
been a marvellous guide to these rocks that have endured far too much
history, Karel de Pauw has continually kept me informed about science
beyond geology, while the late Harry Leeming’s infl uence as regards schol-
arship sensu lato was profound.
My wife Kasia and son Mateusz bore the time-devouring monster that
is book-writing with great fortitude, and more (Mat’s input into the cover
picture, for instance). Crucially, they gave me the gift of a whole, uninter-
rupted summer’s month in which I could fi nally wrestle this thing to the
ground. I hope that, to them, it was worth it.
ix