The Silurian Hypothesis | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and this is stuff. you should know it's just Josh and Chuck. today yeah that's all right don't freak. out Chuck we're going to make it just. fine I'm just glad we're recording this. is uh just a little inside baseball here. this is our third attempt at this. recording set.

yeah well you diffused my my inside joke. to you that I didn't have enough time to. prepare for this episode so yeah my. internet went out because of a wind. storm last week and then we were like uh. you were kind enough to be like we'll. just do it next Thursday mhm and then. yesterday your internet had problems mhm. and I said well let's just do it. tomorrow morning cuz you know Friday. morning at 8:55 is when the voice is in. perfect shape right which was also very.

kind of you so we've been kind to one. another throughout this ordeal at least. you got to do that people if you want to. stay married yeah definitely you want. the other person to Hold Your Hand you. better be kind uh but I'm excited to. finally and you know probably it was. probably good that I had a lot more time. with this because this is one of those. um sort of uh thought. experiment uh get your brain in the. right frame of mind kind of episodes and. we we love doing these and this is going. to be a good one yeah for sure so what. we're talking about today Chuck is the.

saluan. hypothesis which if I could do anything. with this thing I would rename it I'd be. like guys that was a terrible decision. like keep listening everybody so right. exactly promise it's interesting so the. whole thing came out of we'll explain it. in a second but we should probably talk. about where it came from and why we. don't like this name the whole thing. came out of a meeting um between a guy. named Adam Frank who's an astrophysicist. at the University of Rochester and a guy. named Gavin Schmidt who's the bigwig.

director for the Godard Institute for. space studies a NASA joint yeah and um. Adam Frank went to Gavin Schmidt and. said hey I'm trying to figure out um if. we could find ancient defunct. civilizations elsewhere in you know off. of Earth what would I look for and the. reason he was doing this this is a it's. an answer to the familymy Paradox where. is everybody well one answer is well. they were here but now they all died out.

so Adam Frank is looking for evidence. that they were there and Gavin Schmidt. said let me just stop you right there. and up the Auntie here well actually do. you know what Gavin Schmidt said what he. said let me tell you something Professor. Frank hey and Professor Frank said oh. God if I had a dime for every time. somebody did that right so so close uh. yeah Schmidt was like hey buddy uh what'. you say I'll one up you uh I'll up the.

anti okay I'll up the Ane here what if. it's planet Earth and what if there were. ancient civilizations here my friend. yeah and they said check please yeah. Adam Frank just vomited directly all. over uh Gavin Schmid's desk very. famously yeah I mean I think they sort. of started chatting about this thing and. we should point out that um you know. what we're going to they wrote a paper. we'll get to that in a second um and. they named it saluan hypothesis but. neither one of them think.

oh I think this is what happened it's. it's more you know it's a thought. experiment it's what happens when two. remarkably intelligent people get. together sometimes and take. LSD one of the other things about it. that I think makes it worthwhile too. first of all these guys are the first um. scientists to seriously explore the idea. which you can apply science to anything. like that and they even though they. don't think it's correct they don't rule. it out you can't rule it out there's not. enough information to rule it out right. yeah um but the other thing that it does.

is it it provides um kind of like a a. guide to see what we're doing now what. signals were going to leave in the far. future as well yeah absolutely so uh I. imagine they went to another venue they. went to a bar afterward to have a drink. yeah keep this party going and they were. like well you know there's been enough. time for something like this to have. happened yeah uh cuz when you look at. the the fossil record the the oldest. thing that we know of is a c bacteria.

fossil that's about 3 and2 billion years. old that was from the ocean yeah uh and. if you're talking about complex life. then you only have to go back about 540. million years ago to the Cambrian. explosion mhm so like anything beyond. that was you know stuff like canano. bacteria that we know of at least so any. any prior intelligent species wouldn't. theoretically be older than that. Cambrian explosion yeah um they call it.

an explosion because everything went. from single- celled organisms like you. were saying to like basically all the. types of animals on the planet today. yeah just like it it exploded it's just. the best name for it you really can't. add to that but there's another guy. another character we need to add here. and his name is Jason Wright I like this. guy he's an astronomer at Penn State and. he said whoo whoo guys and this is in a. separate paper that I think even. predated the saluan hypothesis paper he. was sitting next to them overhearing.

them at the bar right they were like. covering their work while they were. exactly so Jason Wright says not to them. directly but in general he's like okay. we don't know that you have to stop at. the Cambrian explosion to to look for. intelligent life on Earth in the past. and the reason why is because we have a. really like that's using a really. limited definition of of life that's. using the kind of life that has certain. body plans with the central nervous.

system some have like um backbones some. don't some are jellyfish doesn't matter. like what if there's other kinds of Life. out there what if some of those single-. cell organisms had gotten together and. formed like a a hive mine Colony that. was capable of intelligent. industrialization we we wouldn't know. that like think out of the box guys yeah. exactly cuz you know it's hard to wrap. your head. around all we know is us and what. happened with the development of how we.

got to now yeah uh so he's like you know. turn that off everybody because that. could have happened what Josh Clark just. said and they were like who's Josh Clark. and they said oh you'll find out soon. enough and he said or maybe there was. another like Cambrian like explosion uh. that happened like way way back before. that and maybe it's uh maybe they didn't. leave any fossils behind or or so few. that we didn't find them um or maybe you. know there was a a cataclysm that.

destroyed everything like there was this. complex life it destroyed everything and. it kind of just rebooted the system with. these single- celled organisms and. that's what we know is the start right. yeah and they yeah whoa buddy I know. it's pretty cool can I pay for this. guy's drink yeah can I buy a beer so um. Gavin Schmitt and Adam Frank are like we. think we're on to something here let's. let's kind of flush this out a little. more and I think it was gav Schmidt who.

um suggested they call it the saluran. hypothesis and the reason they call it. the saluran that's a I think a period or. an Epoch or something in Earth's history. um 500 something million years ago uh. but they weren't naming it after that. they were naming it after a race of. lizard people uh who are characters on. Doctor Who yeah and do you watch do you. have any Doctor Who experience none I. feel like it's like this whole thing out. there that's just waiting for me to to.

to meet it and I'm like I don't know I I. mean I've never I don't know anything. about it but I just caveat that because. there may be emails coming in that are. like they're not lizard like people uh. they are this like I have no idea I. looked at pictures of them like you did. and they look like lizard rep reptilian. type creatures they do so that I mean. for all intent if you're not super into. Doctor Who they're lizard people I. really really hope so the reason that. they named after this race of lizard.

people in Doctor Who is that on the in. the Doctor Who Universe they lived about. 300 million years ago which would. actually make them place them in the. Carboniferous period not not the saluan. and apparently all doctor Hans are aware. of that right because they're all Dr. Franks right but um the they supposedly. survived a bunch of cataclysms here on. Earth by moving underground and. hibernating until things cooled off a. little bit and now they're back in the. Doctor Who universe so they would be.

like the ancient civilization and so. there's two reasons why I find that. unfortunate that they named it after. that one it just makes the whole thing. silly to a degree apologies to Doctor. Who fans but it it like this is an. actual like academic exercise they're. engaged in has a silly thing out of the. gate it's a te I mean again we're not. saying Doctor Who is silly but it'd be. like us coming up with like the Family. Ties hypothesis or something right right. like it's named after a TV show it says. like. before you even read the abstract don't.

take this seriously but but it's meant. to be taken seriously it's not tongue. and cheek at all yeah the the paper. isn't at least or the hypothesis the. other reason why is because every single. author who wrote any piece or article. about this hypothesis afterward uses a. hypothetical lizard race to to discuss. what we would be looking for and it's so. obnoxious man so we are not going to do. that no no we're not even going to try.

to guess what they would be like or look. like they're just the hypothetical. ancient industrialized civilization that. we're looking for so if we're looking. for something like that here on Earth. Chuck M what would we start to look for. well and I mean those are sort of the. the questions these guys started I guess. they went to another bar and started. asking they're pretty sosed at this. point yeah I was going to say and they. start asking even more questions I guess. after they got over the the uh I mean. hopefully they didn't have to to argue. about saluan I'm I'm praying they were.

both Doctor Who fans and that Dr Frank. didn't have to convince oh Gavin you. know I I think it might have been the. other way around and based on the titles. I think Frank would have had to go along. with it okay well either way uh they. started to sort of ask these big. questions and what it really comes down. to. are two main questions what should we be. looking for right and in order to think. about what should we be looking for a. good place to start is well what are we.

leaving behind that a future uh. archaeologist or geologist might look. for M and and when they started poking. around a little bit they found that you. know there's some stuff here that that. does bear a resemblance to like possible. signals that something could have. happened uh as far as an ancient. industrialized civilization that just. went. away like you can't hear it but my jaw. just dropped.

all right Josh's jaw is on the floor uh. we're going to seek some medical. attention and we'll take a little break. and we'll be right. [Music]. back. St know you know it's Stu is that in. this St stck it's a great name. got that's the name of it I know it's a. great name all right stucks net within.

within X all right so we're back and we. were talking about where you might or. what you might look for if you're. looking for a previous Advanced. civilization and sort of the obvious. first place you know we're going to. start easy and get a little more complex. here it's just like all the all the. physical stuff like if you're an. industrialized intelligent civilization. you're going to have industry and cities. and factories and things and skyscrapers. and buildings and it's hard to wrap your. head around all that stuff being gone.

one day when you're living amongst it. but like the life of a skyscraper is. about 50 years without human. intervention to you know start you. that's why when you go to New York every. building has scaffolding on it. practically MH uh because you have to. keep those buildings up they start. falling apart because of corrosion and. erosion so without that even though it's. hard to imagine everything will. eventually be gone and we're talking. about in the grand scheme of the big big. timeline so like hundreds of millions of. years. yeah yeah but for a city itself I mean.

apparently water intrusion is a big. problem for all of those tall buildings. um as well as erosion and corrosion and. all that um they're like it's not going. to take millions of years for them to go. away we're talking thousands to tens of. thousands of years yeah and our cities. will be just completely Rubble. especially ones that are built on like. Solid ground or rocky ground mhm um well. above sea level. uh because those are the ones that are.

most like open and left vulnerable to. the processes of erosion that sweep. across Earth's surface and wipe the. whole thing clean and yeah it wouldn't. take very long the the stuff that's. underground yeah might be a a little. more um easily preserved like there you. know any under any City there's a huge. network of infrastructure of pipes and. cables and tunnels and um hard hats and. stuff like that that that conceivably.

even after the city above is long gone. that stuff could could be preserved to a. certain degree yeah for sure um and we. should shout out this guy that did you. dig him up or was that. Livia I think Livia found him yeah his. name is uh uh it starts with a J but. it's Yan zeelos schevitz and he's a. paleontologist at the University of. Lester mhm nice work oh boy in the UK. and uh we shout him out because he you. know he sort of led us down this path of.

of looking underground uh potentially. looking underwater because things would. just deteriorate a lot slower down there. but he's just a guy I just want to. recommend if you're if you want to get. into some heady sort of yeah uh YouTube. stuff just Google Yan zevitz it's z- l a. s i e v i CZ uh cuz I went down a little. cuz we had so much extra time just a. little bit of a rabbit hole. yeah watching this guy he has a bunch of.

YouTubes where he's speaking to. University groups and classrooms and. things and he's just super smart and. interesting yeah the stuff he's into is. super cool too but yeah he he himself. gets it across really well I like that. guy yeah so he points out he was the one. he I think he's he chose San Francisco. like San Francisco is a goner it's not. going to be around very long once we're. gone and by the way I keep saying once. we're gone um remember that amazing 2007. book the world without us by Alan.

Weissman never heard of it oh yes you. have it was like all the thing back in. 2007 they made like TV shows about it. and all that so this guy basically went. to the trouble of figuring out in 5. years 10 years 50 years 100 years. thousand so on that sounds familiar what. the planet would be like after if humans. just suddenly vanished and like he goes. into detail of like the the processes of. erosion and corrosion what effects it's. going to have it's just so fascinating. that's super cool yeah it is super cool. and like the series at least one series.

I think on like Science Channel or. something like that was was worth. watching too but that I mean that has a. lot to do with what we're talking about. um so the the topside City's gone the. stuff underneath might be preserved but. the cities that are built along water. and there's a lot of cities that are. built along water oh yeah um they like. say New Orleans is actually built below. sea level it when people are gone from. New Orleans New Orleans is going to go. away really Qui quick but it will.

probably get preserved or at least. covered over if not preserved by a lot. of the muck the Delta muck that's. brought down the Mississippi River um. and that will could conceivably create. the conditions to preserve the whole. city in some form or fashion totally but. and you know a lot of the thought. experiment is like introducing things. and poking holes in it uh there's not a. lot like you know if you live in an in a. urban area it's kind of hard to think. that there not much urban area in the.

world but there really isn't um I think. the the liberal estimates uh have it at. about a little less than 3% like 2.7. 2.8% of the world has been urbanized. some people put it as low as. 1% uh so there's there's a lot of just. land out there still so you're look if. you're looking for an ancient. civilization uh I mean who's not to say. that it could have been like 50% of the. Earth but chances are it would be. something a little little more like what. we're doing for sure and and so like you.

were saying like that's one of the cool. things about this as a thought. experiment like you raises point and. then you like poke holes in it then. sometimes you can kind of support it. instead and so like a a a legitimate. question would be like why are we. assuming that an ancient civilization. from millions of years ago in Earth's. history had. cities good point the reason why if they. have any kind of intelligence typically. the more of an intelligent organism you.

put together the more advanced it. becomes like 12,000 years ago there was. something like 15 million people across. all of planet Earth tops but then as we. started to grow in density uh thanks to. like Agriculture and animal. domestication um all of a sudden our. technology started to develop at a. really rapid Pace geologically speaking. and now here we are so we could assume. that there'd be some form of density. because you need X number of intelligent. organism. to advance to an industrialized.

civilization one would imagine so. there's actually a legitimate reason to. think that they would have cities that. we could look for the problem is this. Chuck and you know this as well as I do. yes we'll. see the Earth does not like things like. cities and ruins or fossils let's talk. about fossils yeah I mean that that. seems to be the next best place to start. looking if if let's say the buildings. are gone uh fossils are are how we know.

what happened in our distant past MH uh. but fossils are tough just because of. how rare they are and how hard it is to. make one and how uh sort of Lucky it is. that they happen to begin with and that. we find them um the T-Rex is a great. example uh just a little like back in. the envelope math um some estimates say. that somewhere in the neighborhood of. 20,000 T-Rexes at any given time during. their run were walking stomping around. planet Earth with their tiny little baby.

arms uh they were around for about 2 and. a half million years that comes out to. roughly 127,000 Generations on the. lifespan of a T-Rex M so we're talking. total roughly of course about 2 and a. half billion individual T-Rexes that. that lived and died at at any point in. their history M and we only found 50. fossilized skeletons which is about 2. milli I of 1% of the total population.

yeah um I should forewarn you that two. millionths of 1% is my math personally. but I did use an online percentage. calculator like three different times to. make sure so it's it's accurate my. friend oh I I know the math people are. always checking checking you I was about. to say getting your back but really. trying to prove your wrong no they're. not getting my back I've got a Target on. my back that's what they're trying to. get uh but you know the movie Jurassic. Park um as silly as some of that stuff. was with the great movie don't get me.

wrong but you know the the mosquito. being covered in Amber like if you if. you look at that movie like that one. mosquito got trapped in Amber and that's. kind of what we're talking about here is. just sort of the the dumb look of the. fossil happening to begin with a and. then that fossil that's buried. eventually getting pushed up to the. Earth's surface where we can find it. right but within the window between it. popping up and it being findable to it. eroding to where it's not findable.

anymore it's like it's it's all I mean. that's why we don't have you know. billions and billions of fossil is. because it's just really rare to make. one and find one yeah not just making. one but yes finding one it's a all a. product of time and space in a really. complex formula and I saw in um an. article called how can I become a fossil. by John picol from 2018 on BBC really. well worth reading did it say start. listening to the Dobie Brothers. nice oh yeah rip Dicky bets huh uh well.

that Almond Brothers but sure well yeah. I know I knew that but yeah okay I mean. they're both brothers yeah yeah same. time period rip Dicky bets that was that. was a tough one if you had been in my. brain it would have been I got you yeah. of course and it's also 920 so John. Pickel uh cited an estimate that one. tenth of 1% of all the species that have. ever existed has had one of their. individuals fossilized oh wow so just.

really tiny tiny percentages of fossils. are ever created but um and also I got. to just say this quote too there's. another article called anthropos is a. joke yeah I thought you were going to. skip this one this is great yeah a guy. named Peter Brandon who's a science. writer wrote it and basically he's. explaining like just how insignificant. humans have been on Earth even as much. as we've affected Earth just how. insignificant it actually is and how. easily Earth will shake our our stuff. off yeah but he had this great quote I.

think you should say it oh okay uh do. you know where he's from so I can. prepare no let's say. Austria you jerk I mean I guess it's. sort of German I'm just going to read. him as American uh this is this is a. great quote each fossil was its own. Miracle s sampled randomly from almost. 200 million years of History a few stray. windblown pages of a Library isn't that. great yeah that really drives it home it.

really does so hats off to Peter Brandon. and John piol definitely go read those. and also go watch YouTubes of yan zelich. zelich right zevitz kind of like. manevitz right but with a Z yeah so um. all of that said. though we have discovered really really. old fossils the oldest homed our our. ancestor the oldest indisputable. ancestor to humans uh Australopithecus.

anamensis was walking around 4 and a. half almost 4 and a half million years. ago and we have a skeleton of that guy. so as miraculous as fossilization and. discovery of fossils is it does happen. yeah absolutely and that's hominids uh. our our old buddy uh Yan zelich is like. you know what else could happen is we're. creating a bunch of potential uh techn. fossils mhm as we advance um like.

somebody could find a smartphone one day. somebody could find a grocery bag that's. been fossilized sure um the more likely. thing that's going to be found is not. some smartphone that you could plug in. and then. reboot right they'd be like let's see. what pictures this guy but it might be. something like a brick or a glass bottle. uh that's you know that clearly. human-made that's like artificial in. shape and it may be stamped with like a. company name or something like that like.

something like that is is more probable. for a future anthrop or archaeologist. defined as a techn fossil yeah so um or. plastic right plastic is another good. one uh we actually don't know how long. it takes plastic to break down to its. constituent parts we know that it breaks. down into really really small particles. M but there's still like micro particles. of plastic it's like intact particles of. plastic right m. um and if if a future like race.

discovered our plastic they'd be like. this is really bizarre yeah because by. definition the plastic we make is. artificial there are like polymers in. nature like cellulose that are an analog. to our plastic but all the plastic we. make is not found in nature so if they. found that they'd be like this is kind. of weird what's going on with this yeah. for sure and then chicken bones too. Chuck. M have you ever seen those an Instagram. account it may have been called Atlanta.

chicken bones no that were just these. great pictures of chicken bones in. parking lots and sidewalks all over. Atlanta right so that's a really great. Point there's the people who are um like. all bully on the anthropos scene the. idea that the humans are creating in our. own geological era or Epoch um say like. chicken bones are probably a pretty good. bet for like fossilized evidence of our. presence cuz we raise and kill so many. chickens it boggles the mine their bones.

get everywhere and they are anatomically. different from all other kinds of. chickens cuz we bred them to be. different like have huge breasts and not. be able to walk and all sorts of. terrible stuff yeah so if you if you. found other chicken bones in the fossil. record and then you found our Broiler. chicken bones you'd be like what is this. and also why are they in. Antarctica. right I also want to point out since I. brought up Atlanta chicken bones I am a.

lover of fried chicken as you know yeah. it's probably my favorite food and I. have been known to have uh car. chicken as long as there's no shower. chicken I'm still that's still the Line. in the Sand that I'm keeping no you want. to keep it crispy you don't want any. humidity in there uh but I I've always. resisted the urge to uh toss my chicken. bones because I have dogs and I walk. dogs and if you're not paying attention. that that dog can snap up a chicken bone. on the sidewalk pretty easily so just a. PSA they trying to keep those chicken. bones in the Box yeah and chicken bones.

can Splinter so readily that it can it. can really hurt your dog's throat. stomach you don't want a dog eating. chicken bones okay yeah did I ever tell. you this will be quick about when my. deceased dog Buckley ate an entire uh. drumette that fell off the. grill no it popped off many years ago. Buckley left this but uh I looked down I. was like oh shoot chicken bone or. chicken Drummet and it was just gone and. it was gone so fast and Buckley was. there but I was like he wasn't chewing. or anything I was like what happened to.

that thing 10 minutes. later oh no he barfs up a whole he. swallowed it hole a whole chicken. drumette that was still steaming from. the heat of the grill gross oh God so it. was like I mean thank God he did that. cuz that would not have been good no. yeah he swallowed that thing like a pill. and then when he threw up he wiped his. mouth he's like totally worse. yeah I think he thought it was worth it.

um so I said something earlier Chuck we. were talking about ruins fossils all. that stuff I said that Earth doesn't. really like that kind of stuff and I was. [Laughter]. bright are you setting me up yeah yeah. well because here on Earth we have uh. plate tectonics uh we have a situation. where if you're talking about the ocean. crust it subducts below the the lighter. continental crust and it's going to push. everything down down down MH toward the. mantle where it melts and then.

eventually comes back up uh via like a a. a land volcano maybe an UND SE volcano. to form a new crust and it's just like. this this giant super super slow uh. recycling conveyor belt yeah it takes I. think on average about 250 million years. for new crust to go through that whole. cycle and that's just on average it can. take hundreds of millions of years. longer take less but that's just kind of. General how slow it is the point is is.

that after X number of millions of years. that crust is what and everything. attached to it is totally gone once it. hits that mantle it doesn't discriminate. everything gets melted everything gets. melted in the mantle what about on land. well land is uh not subject to um to the. forces of like uh subduction right but. it does have that erosion through wind. and water uh and everything just kind of. gets recycled in its own way plus also.

um the plates that do collide with one. another and there's you know Continental. fault lines obviously too that produce. earthquakes when they Collide the the. stuff anywhere near those edges gets all. kinds of messed up yeah and that's how a. lot of mountain ranges form and then. there's the Himalayas the thing is is. that erosion that process of erosion. that completely recycles Earth's surface. over X number of years. in 88 million years the Himalayas will.

be gone it'll just be a meadow where. they. were that's one of my favorite sort of. facts of the show right there yeah it's. hard to imagine this stuff but yeah what. is it eroding at like 0.1 millimeter per. yearh and again we're talking these. we're talking on timelines of hundreds. of millions of years here right so 88. million years yeah that's it just go. romp in the meadow yeah because even if. we're just going back to the Cambrian. explosion and you can argue that you can. go back further like Jason Wright did. but even if you're just going back 540.

million years that means continental. crusts have like reinvented themselves. twice since then yeah the Earth's um. surface has been recycled countless. times apparently the the oldest surface. stretch of Earth is only is like less. than 2 million years old oh jeez that's. really young um the reason all this. stuff is hard to imagine like the. Himalayas going away it's cuz our sense. of time is so limited to about the span. of a lifetime yeah plus a couple of.

decades maybe um that when we start to. think of tens and and hundreds of. millions of years into the future of the. past we just stop it just doesn't it. doesn't really make sense to us unless. we really apply ourselves with episodes. like this yeah exactly so it so you've. got plates colliding you've got glaciers. do all sorts of they move entire regions. around like bulldozers but even. something as humble as the movement of. earthworms through the soil. over enough time that's going to erode.

fossils ruins Subterranean networks of. pipes and essentially we're we're back. to square one trying to figure out what. to look for for an ancient. civilization are we. done almost all right maybe we should. take a break and we'll come back uh and. talk about why we're striking out and. where we go next. [Music].

stet I don't know you know it's St is. that in this stet it's a great. name that's the name of it I know it's a. great name all right stuck net with an. with an X okay Chuck so we've seen that. we can dismiss the archaeologists thank. you everybody and bring in the. geologists yeah like take your uh take.

your whip take your Fedora MH pack it. all up go take a break MH because the. geologists are on the scene you can Dr. Jones you can take a seat right so I. can't even like what are the geologists. like they just they don't have a movie. franchises like the archaeologists do. yeah I mean they're not looking for. Grails they're looking for residue so. it's not as grabby yeah I guess they're. the thing that you most associate with.

is like a a slight cough in really large. empty room yeah like there there would. never be a movie called Indiana Jones. and the ancient tree. ring no you know no unfortunately but. that's what we're talking about is the. fact that if we were to have an uh a. future uh geologist look back that's. what they would likely be looking for. like forget the fossils they're going to. be looking for just little bits of. residue by looking at these tiny little.

layers of sediment that we deposit every. day all over the place that eventually. becomes Rock uh and this is how we you. know look back at our own past to learn. things that's how we knew that the. dinosaurs uh were exploded basically. because of that asteroid uh and that. Cambrian explosion happened because we. have studied geology yeah we've learned. to study those layers that get put down. and put down and um the problem is on. Earth's surface as we've seen there's.

the process of erosion yeah and there's. a an entire layer across the whole globe. it's not just in one spot but there's a. billion year um stretch of the. geological record that's just gone it's. missing this is crazy I've never heard. of this yeah I hadn't either it's called. The Great. unconformity and um like we'll just. never know what was there or what. happened during that time because. there's no record of it they think that. it was just a period where there wasn't. a lot of sedimentation put down but.

there was a lot of erosion and so some. people um suggest that it was during. snowball Earth one of those periods. where like ice sheets cover the entire. Globe three miles thick and that they. could erode stuff you know pretty. cleanly across the globe it's a pretty. good pretty good theory but stuff like. that happens so when we're looking on. Earth's surface you run into problems. but because that oceanic crust takes so. much longer to recycle we could look. there and and conceivably find something. hundreds of millions of years old yeah I.

also got to say snowball Earth is I mean. that's the next great Netflix show. waiting to happen maybe that's about an. adventurous geologist maybe so yeah I. love it so uh yeah going back underwater. seems to be a better bet than uh because. of stuff like the great unconformity. going back underwater where that process. is of wearing stuff away is much much. slower is probably a better bet for us. and a better bet for uh future.

geologists yeah cuz all the stuff that. enters the ocean or is born and lives. and dies in the ocean it becomes detrius. that eventually tumbles down to the. ocean floor and it it gets locked in his. sediment there and it happens really. really slowly um like I think 8 cm every. thousand years is about the average yeah. of sedimentation so that means that so. far we have accumulated about6 cm of.

ocean sediment that would bear our. presence possibly even bear the the. signals that we ever lived um but we're. doing we're adding to it every day. thanks to things like um nitrogen. fertilizer that we overuse that enters. the the um water sheds and eventually. goes to the ocean and then goes and gets. trapped in sediment and so if you were a. future archaeologist or geologist and. you were looking at the the layer where. we existed you'd be like what is all. this nitrogen suddenly doing here and.

then also um what are these weird. polymers yeah that that used to be our. plastic from all the stuff all the. plastic that ends up in our oceans those. will eventually fall down to the bottom. and become trapped in the sedimentary. layer too yeah so that that Super Soaker. that your kid uh lost beyond the point. where the waves would bring it back in. mhm is eventually going to end up at the. or or the trash that uh floating around. the ocean all that stuff is going to go. down as well and so this is going to.

leave behind like a trace a sediment. Trace where a future geologist might say. well hey I see that there was this. specific time period 100 million years. ago where there was a spike in nitrogen. or a spike in these weird human-made uh. polymers or maybe they didn't know that. there were humans but either way we were. lizards yeah something that that doesn't. uh jive with what we have going on today. right there are all these weird spikes. so there was clearly something going on.

in this time that we now think of as our. time here on planet Earth yeah because. that's how we we find mysterious signals. in the geological record you compare it. to what's above and what's below it and. if something suddenly appears or. disappears you know like it's like look. here look closer here yeah um. radioactivity will probably be a marker. that would be behind two from all the. nuclear tests um there'll be uh. plutonium 244 and 129 which have half. lives in the millions tens of millions.

of years uh if we end up going out in a. massive nuclear war you bet that will. leave quite a signal in the geological. record and one of the other things about. leaving uh like a record in oceanic. crust is that the earth goes through. cycles of like um Cooling and warming. and Cooling and warming and when it. cools the the sea levels decline it gets. sucked up into ice and so what's under. the ocean May end up hundreds of miles.

Inland future archaeologists to find. probably more easily than they would if. it were underwater at the time yeah for. sure so you know sort of striking out. all over the place such that our old. astronomer friend Jason Wright is like. maybe Earth is not the place to look uh. maybe you should be you know we should. be looking on a place like Mars that. doesn't have plate tectonics and is. probably a better more hospitable place. for some some ancient thing to be. discovered one day yeah and not not.

necessarily a martian civilization but. an intelligent Earth civilization that. sent probes to Mars or something like. that yeah the European Space Agency also. points out that if anybody had been. around to send a um like a a probe out. into geosynchronous orbit the furthest. reaches of geosynchronous orbit around. Earth it would still be there it it's. orbit wouldn't have collapsed yet um so. you know we need just need to look for. 66 million year old probes spinning. around Earth that's a good good start.

too yeah so all of this sort of presents. a paradox is pretty interesting uh which. is that if you're going to be an. industrialized civilization that lasts. long enough to to leave something behind. for some future geologist to find then. that means that you found some sort of. sustainable way to survive um and if you. found a sustainable way to survive that. means you're not um making as much of an. a findable impact on Earth you're living.

more sustainably and so you're not. dumping Plastics into the ocean or. nitrogen into the ocean and sort of. cleaning up your act and uh erasing your. path a little bit better um if you're. not doing that then that means you. haven't found a sustainable way to live. so that means you're going to as a. society die out much quicker so you're. going to be just a shorter blip so. either way it's just going to make. things more difficult yeah whether. you're long lived or shortlived the the. record you leave is going to end up just. being a blip in the geological record.

right yeah again on that huge timeline. so like I'm sure some people are pulling. their hair out they're like how then. like it is even possible to find signals. that an ancient civilization existed or. what signals well we leave too and yes. there are and what you want to look for. is not the G like traces of fossils or. strange um appearances of elements in in. the geolog record and sediments instead. you want to look at the Impressions that.

the effects of those things had on Earth. because those get locked into geological. records and they can stay around for a. very very long time so much so that we. can look back into Earth's far far far. distant past yeah and we see signals. that were like can't rule out that this. some industrialized ancient civilization. produced these effects on Earth because. we don't know what happened. yeah exactly and what we're talking. about is something called a hyperthermal.

event where three things kind of line up. which is an Abrupt Extinction of um. maybe not everything but many many many. species that's pretty obvious uh that. coincides with a buildup of carbon in. the atmosphere and a lot of Rapid. Coastal erosion all of those three three. things happening at once is called a. hyperthermal event and it's a pretty. good indication that something really. really big happen to wipe out most.

everything yes and usually the. hypothermal events we found are caused. by negative carbon isotope extrusions. which is basically just a different way. of saying a ton of organic CO2 was. pumped into the atmosphere and it had. all of these um Telltale marks of sea. level rise leading to erosion mass. extinctions dogs and cats living. together all that stuff right and so if. we look in the past there are events. that coincide with this one of them is. the paleocene eosine thermal maximum the.

petm yeah it took place about 56 million. years ago so basically after the. dinosaurs died out and right after. mammals started to take over Earth yeah. it it got really hot and I was trying to. figure out how hot the the surface temps. in the Arctic sea uhuh were about 73°. Fahrenheit 23 degrees C that's what you. find today around the Panhandle in the. Gulf of Mexico yeah these are the Arctic. seas today the global annual surface.

temperatur is about 59° F. 15 back then it was 90° F or 32° C that. like that's the global temperature the. average across all of the globe so it. was really really hot and they have. traced that to tons of carbon dioxide. suddenly appearing in the atmosphere. causing all these changes yeah and that. lasted for about a 100,000 years uh but. that's not the only one uh there have. been other events similar to that uh in. the Cretaceous Period in the Jurassic.

period uh in the Paleozoic Era uh and. then in the six million years since uh. the petm the paleocene eosine thermal. maximum uh there were even more of those. hyperthermal events and again they sort. of all bore the same uh similarities. right yeah because there's only so many. ways that Earth responds to being messed. with yeah and um so like all of these. things kind of do bear a striking.

similarity um and there are things. there's natural things that you can. point to that could have caused them. like massive volcanic activity across. earth or a sudden huge deposit of shale. ended up in the mantle and got recycled. very quickly and all sorts of CO2 was. released in the air who knows but what. Schmidt and Frank basically point to is. like and again they don't think this is. correct they're they they say like you. can't rule out yeah yeah that this is a.

marker of an ancient civilization. creating climate change in exactly the. same way that we're creating climate. change today because we are laying down. the foundations of a geological signal. that will be detectable hundreds of. millions of years in the future as a. hyperthermal exactly like the ancient. hyperthermals we've discovered in. Earth's past yeah which is basically if. we do ourselves in with climate change. yeah because they're predicting if we.

just keep going with fossil fuels just. for the rest of the century by the end. of the century um will have uh increased. the global temperature by about 4.8. deges C which is huge that is a that. qualifies as a hyperthermal maximum and. that petm like the biggest hypothermal. maximum that ever happened all of a. sudden that took place over like a. thousand plus years we're doing this in. a couple hundred years so it will really. stick out in the geological record. yeah I think the the petm had a a 5 to 7.

uh Celsius degree rise and if we're. looking at 4.8 in that span of time. that's trouble yeah and that's just by. the end of the century who knows if we. just keep going we're not quite sure. when the whole thing will steady itself. out and what the Peaks will be when it. does you know yeah so there's one other. thing that I found really interesting is. that the fossil fuels that we're using. to create inadvertently this hyperm in. Earth's geological record is Created.

from the mass extinctions from the past. those die offs turned into fossil fuels. that we use today to to essentially um. add all that carbon to the atmosphere. which is creating these warmer. conditions yeah and then if you take it. one step further we're eventually going. to create these mass extinctions that. will create the fossil fuels for another. industrialized civilization to come tens. of millions of years in the future. that's right we're we're just.

insignificant aren't we yeah but also. over overly significant somehow that's. right if you really want to get that. driven home go read Peter Brandon's the. anthropos scene is a joke it really it. almost made me feel like fine about. climate change because it just in the. grand scheme of things it's so. insignificant I had to be like no no it. matters it's it's important stop. thinking like that yeah uh I know what. you mean so uh you got else I got. nothing else this is um long awaited for.

us and a lot of fun yeah let's hope we. um remembered to press record oh God I. would just I would just. retire uh well since Chuck said he would. just retire of course that means he's. triggered listener. mail uh yes this is a story from Dylan. this is one that I know about uh or knew. about but I don't know if we ever talked. about it but it's a pretty interesting. little thing okay um hey guys uh I've. been listening to you for about 2 years. helps cut down on my commute and I often.

learn a lot uh during the hitchhiking up. you were talking about uh the Kirby Your. Enthusiasm episode where Larry David uh. picks up a sex worker so he can ride in. the carpool lane to a Dodgers game and I. wanted to let you know something about. that episode did you know this no I. thought this was amazing yeah uh that. episode was actually used to help secure. an alibi for a man Juan catalon who is. arrested for murder uh they filmed the. episode during during an actual Dodgers. game and it just so happened that Juan. and his family were sitting in the same.

section as Larry David when they were. filming and Juan's lawyer used the raw. footage from the episode to help. exonerate him so they picked up this guy. for murder yeah and they proved him. wrong thanks to this kir your enthusiasm. footage he was like he was at the Dodger. game he couldn't have done it God did. not want Juan in jail amazing uh there's. a short documentary on Netflix called. long shot and it is truly one of the. stories you can't believe is true got. thanks for the years of entertainment I. love sharing the knowledge with you guys.

through listener mail stay positive and. keep testing negative Dylan awesome. Dylan you're a cool cat we can tell. thanks a lot for that great email that. was amazing and we will definitely go. watch long shot very soon totally if you. want to get in touch with us like Dylan. did you can send us an email send it off. to stuff podcast iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart Radio. for more podcasts my heart radio visit. the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or.

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