Our species has left an indelible mark on the planet. So much so that when we disappear our distinctive fossil footprint will last for a long time.
That is what, at least, a team of researchers from different British and American institutions maintains in The Anthropocene Review .
In their study, coordinated by the geologist Jan Zalasiewicz, from the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom, these scientists affirm that the mark of humanity is of such magnitude that it is not possible to find anything remotely similar in the entire history of the Earth , even if we go back to its formation, 4.5 billion years ago.
As the essay describes, just as today we can study dinosaurs from their bones and the footprints that have survived to this day, humans will leave a trail of objects that these scientists have called techno-fossils . “Few vestiges are recovered from most animals, such as skeletal remains, for example.
Homo sapiens, on the other hand, produce millions of things and of very different kinds , from nanometric structures to cities ”, says Zalasiewicz. “What’s more, the tracks produced by other organisms follow patterns that change, so to speak, with geological slowness, over millions of years.
On the contrary, our assets evolve at great speed. The new ones make the old ones obsolete quickly. Over time, everything from airports to toothbrushes could get buried in the sediments in such a way that they end up turning into techno-fossils. “
For the paleobiologist Mark Williams, co-author of the study, “in millions of years, long after our species has disappeared, techno-fossils will define the strata of human times , what we would call the Anthropocene . If a paleontologist were to examine Earth in the distant future, they would probably consider these objects the most valuable in the entire fossil record. “
