The Silurian Hypothesis (preprint) is the idea if industrial civilization had arisen on Earth prior to the existence of hominids, what traces would be left that could be detectable now? As a starting point, we explore what the traces of the Anthropocene will be in millions of years – carbon isotope changes, global warming, increased sedimentation, spikes in heavy metal concentrations, plastics and more – and then look at previous examples of similar events in the geological record. What is unique about our presence on Earth and what might be common to any industrial civilization? Can we rule out similar causes?
Gavin's title seems rather odd given its illustration, , as the Silurian period ended a hundred million years before the dinosaurs evolved. Since climate warriors often write more science ficTion than they are given credit for, one hopes Gavin’s story will inspire a primeval tale of Green dinosaurs committed to staving off The 0.6th Extinction.
It could be parsed as a Pangaean Affairs article by an editorial collective of ammonites critical of the elitist vertibrate policy debate between Coprolite Carbon Sequestration advocates, and radical therapods demanding more tree fern peatbeds to fuel posterity’s struggle to power through Snowball Earth episodes in epochs to come.
