Quite some time. Basically until a large ball of rock hit a precise part of the moon wherein a small plaque with Nixon's name on it exists. Then considering the longevity of of SOME man made structures... I'd say you'd lose all visible trace of the human race in about 8-10,000 years.
I'm wondering just how many Star Trek fans were more worried that Voyager VI wouldn't launch by 1999 than about their bank accounts mysteriously emptying on January 1st, 2000...
There are still man-made structures from the stone age visible today and considering the longevity of modern structures you mention (not to mention the amount and size, a city like London will be a lot more difficult to obscure than a small iron age settlement), it will take far longer if the human population just died. It'd have to be worldwide catastrophic event (volcanic eruptions everywhere, a meteor the size of the moon smashing into Earth etc.) to obscure everything.
Well, experts predict that a pandemic might see off 100-150 million people worldwide, so we're not all going to die. I'm just posing a thought experiment.
Black plague saw off half the population of Europe, and while they didn't have antibiotics and quarantine (and MRSA...) they also didn't live in such close quarters.
If bird flu reaches these shores, I've told the guy I share an office with that I shall be garotting him simply to ensure that I am not the 50% of our office population who dies.
Oh, well, lets assume all the ones who are immune are British and do jobs like 'credit controllers' and work in Financial services. 24 hours after everyone else has died they will discover the supermarkets are closed and from then on in its a countdown to extinction.
I mean, what are the chances that if some epic pandemic hit the human race, that the survivors woulds turn out to be some red neck Armenian hill farmers or some fanatical Christians? Would we WANT the human race to survive?
Some. Ish. We aren't EXACTLY sure on the half-million years tag. But a bloody long time indeed.
The oldest structures may fall away but traces remain. Roman forts long gone can been seen from the air ala time team. Dave- you want it- no buildings left gone, or GONE gone.
If the former, then 8-10,000 years from today. If the latter- mmmmnnnn. 25,000. Give or take a few.
I'm going for 'No visible signs', because evidence will be left in the fossil record, and in radioactive isotopes, for untold millions of years. I was just thinking of the ephemeral nature of human achievement this morning, like you do.
Toilet bowls. Millions and millions of toilet bowls. Made of ceramic, mechanically strong, chemically indestructible. Biologists of the future will have a whale of a time working out what creatures grew them as skeletons.
Hrm...and I was expecting a Motel of the Mysteries reference...and I rather like that scenario of worldwide collapse of civilisation...burial in junkmail.
Really obvious stuff like big stone buildings should last a while. Most of the erosion to such structures is believed to be caused by humans nicking the stones to build new stuff with. Without all that manpower, you'll have to wait for accidental erosion by rain and whatnot, or for buildings to get covered up with sand or forests. I'd give it about twenty five thousand years.
If someone turned up and did a serious study, they'd be digging up plastic bags for a few thousand years. After that we should be easily detectable in core samples as an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide a few million years from now.
In the fossil record, we show up as short mass extinction event, accompanied by a thin layer of radioactive deposits (from all that coal-burning), and followed by a small explosion in biodiversity. That should last at least a hundred million years, but it might be mistaken for a cometary impact.
The Earth and Moon are scheduled for demolition by the sun in about five billion years anyway. After that we'd be quite hard to detect.
Somebody might stumble across Pioneer 10. Five billion years from now it should still be in galactic orbit carrying a readable message plaque. It'll probably eventually go too close to a star and collide with something. Then we'll be gone.
If you mean things like overt architecture, infrastructure and the like...
Consider all those petro-refineries, nuclear power plants, ships at sea, and multiplicity of boilers & fuel systems all over the world that would start massive conflagrations without proper monitoring.
Likewise, most roads and homes in the US, at least, are built so poorly that a decade of floods, frost, and weeds would devastate most recognizable structures.
Otherwise, if one means all traces of humanity, I'm afraid our toxic and nuclear wastes, plus massive species transfers have made a permanent mark. As it is, most near-surface groundwater surfaces have levels of pesticide & herbicide contamination that won't be removed for a century or more.
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Basically until a large ball of rock hit a precise part of the moon wherein a small plaque with Nixon's name on it exists.
Then considering the longevity of of SOME man made structures...
I'd say you'd lose all visible trace of the human race in about 8-10,000 years.
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They have to launch four more in negative-6 years in order to catch up.
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I'm wondering just how many Star Trek fans were more worried that Voyager VI wouldn't launch by 1999 than about their bank accounts mysteriously emptying on January 1st, 2000...
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I had forgotten that the Eugenics War / WWIII were during the 1990's.
Technically, we're only about 40-50 years away from Cochrane's birth, aren't we?
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It'd have to be worldwide catastrophic event (volcanic eruptions everywhere, a meteor the size of the moon smashing into Earth etc.) to obscure everything.
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Given issues of biodegradability, we're talking in the tens of thousands of year.
And, hell, do fossils count as visible evidence?
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If bird flu reaches these shores, I've told the guy I share an office with that I shall be garotting him simply to ensure that I am not the 50% of our office population who dies.
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24 hours after everyone else has died they will discover the supermarkets are closed and from then on in its a countdown to extinction.
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Would we WANT the human race to survive?
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But a bloody long time indeed.
The oldest structures may fall away but traces remain. Roman forts long gone can been seen from the air ala time team.
Dave- you want it- no buildings left gone, or GONE gone.
If the former, then 8-10,000 years from today.
If the latter- mmmmnnnn. 25,000. Give or take a few.
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I was just thinking of the ephemeral nature of human achievement this morning, like you do.
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Hey, we are a ephemeral race you know!
(shrugs)
Go figure.
:)
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Maybe I'll build a statue of myself with an inscription suggesting that the mighty look on my works and despair. I'm sure that'll last forever.
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Bloody foreigners!
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The US constantly complains about the mexicans yet you never see any trouble from them here. Zero Tollerance works!
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If someone turned up and did a serious study, they'd be digging up plastic bags for a few thousand years. After that we should be easily detectable in core samples as an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide a few million years from now.
In the fossil record, we show up as short mass extinction event, accompanied by a thin layer of radioactive deposits (from all that coal-burning), and followed by a small explosion in biodiversity. That should last at least a hundred million years, but it might be mistaken for a cometary impact.
The Earth and Moon are scheduled for demolition by the sun in about five billion years anyway. After that we'd be quite hard to detect.
Somebody might stumble across Pioneer 10. Five billion years from now it should still be in galactic orbit carrying a readable message plaque. It'll probably eventually go too close to a star and collide with something. Then we'll be gone.
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Rather quickly I wager
Consider all those petro-refineries, nuclear power plants, ships at sea, and multiplicity of boilers & fuel systems all over the world that would start massive conflagrations without proper monitoring.
Likewise, most roads and homes in the US, at least, are built so poorly that a decade of floods, frost, and weeds would devastate most recognizable structures.
Otherwise, if one means all traces of humanity, I'm afraid our toxic and nuclear wastes, plus massive species transfers have made a permanent mark. As it is, most near-surface groundwater surfaces have levels of pesticide & herbicide contamination that won't be removed for a century or more.