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

"Indeed! I’m not a geologist, so The Earth After Us and the many articles Zalasiewicz has produced as part of the Anthropocene Working Group were invaluable to me, in giving a material basis for the future fossils I was interested in. He walks the reader through the processes that would lead, for example, to a city leaving a fossil layer, what he calls the “urban stratum,” which an alien visitor could discover 100 millions years from now. It’s a pretty wild read, but hugely informative. It changed the way I see the world and our role in shaping it. Virginia Woolf said, “we live in things,” and Zalasiewicz shows how this will be so long after we’re gone. He coins the term ‘technofossils’ to describe the huge variety and quantities of made things, from Bic pens to metal alloys, that have the potential to leave a lasting impression. As chair of the AWG, Zalasiewicz has been a kind of spokesperson for the emerging concept of the Anthropocene, and I think we’re extremely fortunate to have such a graceful writer perform this role. ‘The Anthropocene’ has attracted a lot of criticism, mostly that it fails to accurately name the problem—is that it isn’t humans per se that cause climate change, it’s certain human societies choosing to organise themselves in a particular way (i.e. it’s capitalism that’s to blame). And this is absolutely true. But I still believe the Anthropocene is a useful concept, because it provokes us to rethink our relationship with deep time. The AWG’s task is to establish whether there will be enough clear and widespread evidence of human civilisations in the geologic record to mark a boundary between stages in Earth history. Previously, these boundaries have been marked by glaciations or extinctions. Which is to say, the Anthropocene identifies us with processes that unfold over very deep time. There’s a radical and vital re-visioning that follows from this, which I hope is a step towards learning to be better ancestors."