Woah, hold your rockets there, Captain Eager. Where did I ever say that the sarcophagus would last 50 million years intact? Once again, you show that you are perfectly happy to assume what I am saying instead of reading what I actually say. Congratulations, you've successfully killed the strawman. Well, the whole oxydization process would seem to me to require oxygen. Peat bogs have been shown to preserve corpses excellently. Of course, it's another matter regarding how long the bog lasts. Yeah, Id guess that a small, extremely fragile eggshell that has had nothing done at all to protect it is much LESS likely to survive. But we've seen that a civilization that has advanced to the level where it can build rockets has also developed to the point where it can build sky scrapers. I know, I was being a bit overly picky about that, wasn't I? Just playing devil's advocate. Well, the only reason I ask is that you seem to be responding to points that I haven't been making. Would you care to explain WHY? Because I tend to think that evidence that a bone made a recovery that could only happen with help from advanced technology is evidence that the individual was treated with advanced technology. Do you think differently? Because you've been nothing but polite, have you? What would I count as evidence? Imagine that alien scientists came to Earth in 50 million years. What could they find they would give them cause to think, "About 50 million years ago, there was a technologically advanced civilization that spread across most of this planet." What would give them cause to think that? That is what I would consider evidence. If you somehow concluded that I meant buildings would survive intact when I never said anything of the sort, then you obviously can't comprehend things very well. Don't blame me for implying when it is you making inferences. See those parts I highlighted? How you can read that and then conclude that I meant that buildings will remain intact over millions of years is absolutely beyind me. So, I conclude that you read what you THINK I am writing and reply to what you THINK I said. Your argument that "They're just rocks and they'll erode" would be a lot more convincing if we didn't have any rocks older than 50 million years. And don't tell me that those are igneous rocks. We have plenty of sedimentary rocks that are older than 50 million years too. After all, we only ever find fossils in sedimentary rocks. You seem to be going from the assumption that ALL things underground are subject to things that will destroy them. This is not true. Traces that are left of the pyramids could be the large flat areas of rock that they are built on showing signs of having a large, square-based object on top of them, that, when viewed in relation to the path of the nearby river (yes, rivers leave traces, it's how we get dinosaur footprints, so don't tell me it doesn't happen), match up to the position of the stars in Orion's belt in relation to the Milky Way. And don't start on how the stars will be in different positions in 50 million years. Any alien scientists who come along in 50 million years will certainly be able to piece together what position the stars were in. And you do the same.
Ned Flanders blocked 229 of the possible subscribable 230 channels from his provider. There are ten thousand members on this board. Has anyone used the ignore function on at least a thousand of our friends?
Your previous question implied to me that you expected it to be intact. If you understood that it would be eroded to nothing, then why did you ask? Not nothing, just incredible luck that it managed to be protected by the right circumstances. How many eggs do you figure were ever laid across the entire Mesozoic? Over the 187 million years of the Mesozoic, how many eggs existed? How many were preserved up to now? Do we have the same numbers of anything to match the long odds of lucky preservation? One data point is not a trend, though. Honestly, I was completely polite until #65. Your posting style indicated increased frustration and contempt for what I was writing. This field is my job and if you're not going to believe me, what can I do? I just don't have the time to devote to a thorough literature search on this subject for you, and even if I did, why should I do it? You're already acting like you know everything, and for all I know, you do know everything. I'm just a geophysics professor, so what would I know about this subject? Maybe you're Don Anderson in real life, which means I should be taking notes on this subject from you, but you don't even have the courtesy to share a little info in your profile. I can't tell if you flip burgers for a living, or if you're Stephen fucking Hawking.
Are you naturally this pigheaded or do you work at it? What on earth gives you the idea that it must be either intact or eroded to nothing? I said that some trace of it could remain. That is all. It may be nothing more than some rocks that are only found in this one small area and bear signs of having been exposed to something highly radioactive. Stop inferring. Humans are notorious for making things in astronomical quantities. Why should this same luck that let eggshells survive not also act on the huge numbers of things that Humans produce? The same thing applies to lots of things. My point is that a civilisation that has progressed to the point where it can venture out into space has also made a huge number of other technological acheivements. Anyway, let me ask you a questiopn... If you could come back to this planet in 50 million years, would you expect that every single trace of human civilization, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant, would have been completely wiped out?
Because it wasn't designed to last 50 million years. Do you think the engineers were interested in designing it to last that long - without maintenance? Entire continents MOVE in 50 million years. Whole mountain ranges will erode away in 50 million years. What's so special about a lump of concrete? The freeze-thaw cycles alone would break it down over a few hundred years, and the rest of the environment will reduce it to pebbles or smaller over the remaining time. Even the radioactivity at Chernobyl will subside over merely thousands of years. So what could be left after 50 million years? Nothing. Incredibly unlikely. "Only in this one small area"? You're assuming that the material won't be redistributed? "Signs of exposure to radioactivity"? Like what - fission tracks in the crystals? Those occur naturally anyway. You throw out these half-baked ideas that "some evidence" would remain, yet you clearly have no idea what that evidence would be, but still have the gall to imply that I don't know what I'm talking about? Such as? Toothpicks? Tissue paper? Yes.
Ok so, fossils survive because they're actually rocks. And we notice them because they're shaped like bits of animal. So, what do we make, out of rock, that could survive and be unearthed in 50 million years, in a noticeable form. Any large structures will be long gone. But could bits of rubble be identified? Statues, carvings etc?
What about radioactive waste? Plutonium has a half life of 80 million years, and although it is found sparingly in nature, a massive clott from a war, accident or commercial venture would look suspicious. Oh, and there's three hundred (useful) isotopes discovered so far that can only be made in a reactor, that should not be present near dinosaur fossils. It's also possible that seemingly naturally found radioactive elements, do need to be made in a reactor too, but they are just leftover remnants of the Voth culture and wwejust figured wrong that they are naturally forming. Which means that our leap into atomic technology was a million times easier than the Voth's who had a smaller table of elements to work with before they started smashing atoms.
Good Lord! In this day and age there is very effective medicated shampoo that can resolve these issues completely.