The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? · HackerPapers discussions

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 23:08:10 GMT

The Silurian Hypothesis (2018)

4 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:34:10 GMT

The Silurian Hypothesis (2018)

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by mncharity

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 22:25:45 GMT

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? (2019) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.03748

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by noslenwerdna

Thu, 16 May 2024 16:48:10 GMT

If they were as advanced as we are now, we would have seen that the atmospheric CO2 levels had been higher back then, no? This paper draws the conclusions that such a civilization would be visible in the geological record. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by lumost

Sat, 04 May 2024 18:33:27 GMT

The concept of prior industrial civilizations was explored in a 2018 paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.03748. If you exclude industry, it could be exceedingly improbable that we would find fossil evidence of such creatures unless the species existed for several million years.

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by VHRanger

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:26:25 GMT

That's a question in geology and archaeology called the Silurian Hypothesis: Could we even detect a millions-of-years old civilization in the geological record? 1. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by sjy

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 05:10:58 GMT

I recommend Schmidt and Frank’s article on the Silurian hypothesis [1] for a surprisingly different take on this. The full text is on arXiv [2]. “We summarize the likely geological fingerprint of the Anthropocene, and demonstrate that while clear, it will not differ greatly in many respects from other known events in the geological record” – that is, the record we can observe from a distance of zero! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by aardvark179

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:16:02 GMT

Depends how long dead we’re talking about. You might like this paper[1] which asks what evidence would be left if there had been a pre-human industrial civilisation. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 19:14:54 GMT

Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in geological record?

156 points; 178 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by LargoLasskhyfv

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 14:39:57 GMT

You mean like https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-e... which links to https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748 ?

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by hprotagonist

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 20:22:15 GMT

https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748 If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? We summarize the likely geological fingerprint of the Anthropocene, and demonstrate that while clear, it will not differ greatly in many respects from other known events in the geological record. We then propose tests that could plausibly distinguish an industrial cause from an otherwise naturally occurring climate event.

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by mkl

Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:08:28 GMT

"We name the hypothesis after a 1970 episode of the British science fiction TV series Doctor Who" - The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 03:37:19 GMT

The Silurian Hypothesis

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 14:43:54 GMT

Is it possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by namirez

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 22:12:35 GMT

Most likely it is nonsense. The carbon and nitrogen composition of sedimentary layers will show anomalies in case of intelligent civilizations. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.03748.pdf

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by HuShifang

Sat, 31 Aug 2019 04:33:42 GMT

Some recent, informed speculation about such possibilities: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by mellosouls

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 12:52:44 GMT

Yes, this has been investigated before - e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748 https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-e... But the evidence we have (as per prior comments) is that a human-level intelligence civilisation has arisen only once on Earth.

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The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — mentioned by hesk

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 18:17:20 GMT

Maybe it was this? Gavin A. Schmidt, Adam Frank: The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?, https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748 I found it through an article in The Atlantic that may or may not have been linked on HN recently. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-e...

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Sun, 02 Sep 2018 22:29:24 GMT

Is it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?

4 points; 2 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:30:54 GMT

Would it be possible to detect industrial civilization in the geological record?

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? — HN submission

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 19:33:22 GMT

Would it be possible to detect an industrial civ. in the geological record?

3 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.