
Prior Indigenous Technological Species - miobrien
https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.07263
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oldmancoyote
As a geologist I want to emphasize how scanty is the exposure of
terrestrial(dry land) landscape within the geological record. Assuming we are
talking about a terrestrial species, the available geological record is mostly
volcanic flows and sand seas (like the Sahara) of huge extent. The surface of
the Earth is mostly an erosional surface not a depositional one. Ironically,
the best place to find terrestrial fossils is within lake beds (not really
terrestrial at all).

As metals do not last on the geological time scale, I think that the most
likely evidence would be ceramic fragments or stone structures, but I believe
there is too little exposure of suitable habitat and the likelihood of
noticing any evidence as might be exposed too slight to say anything about the
lack of geological evidence.

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impostervt
Any idea what the oldest piece of land on earth is that has been continuously
dry?

~~~
oldmancoyote
The oldest part of the continents are probably what you're looking for. South
central Africa, corresponding parts of Brazil, Australia, and parts of eastern
Canada are all very old, multiple billions of years old. But really, these are
VERY old areas. Lots of things have happened to them in that much time. Some
of them were undoubtedly wet.

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stcredzero
I really like Issac Arthur's treatment of this topic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fLNvpl0c8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fLNvpl0c8)

The easiest technological species to detect for the longest time would be
space-faring species that leave behind structures on airless moons. Note that
even these traces aren't eternal. Micro-meteoroids and meteoroids will
eventually erode even those.

~~~
fao_
Thank you for the video. I haven't seen this video series before, but it seems
interesting!

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genpfault
Ah yes, PRIOR TENANT[1]. With apologies to Stross[2] :)

[1]:
[https://everything2.com/title/PRIOR+TENANT](https://everything2.com/title/PRIOR+TENANT)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files)

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oldmancoyote
How hard would it be to detect evidence of previous earth-based intelligent
species? The people of Chaco canyon lived about 1000 years ago. They build an
extensive system of stone paved roads. From personal experience I can say that
the wind-blown sand and desert vegetation make it impossible to recognize
these roads on the surface. These roads were first recognized from aerial
photographs. BUT, they were first discovered many years before by a researcher
who saw the profile of a road in an excavation. He published a photo in a
paper that included the wry note that they looked just like a road.

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JoeDaDude
I've often considered that I should consign my mortal remains to become a
fossil, but I would carry with me some object that proved I was a member of a
technological society, something like a wooden abacus that would fossilize
along with the rest of my corpse.

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shshhdhs
What does the journal comment mean?

""Accepted for publication in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
Manuscript refused by Astriobology without review as "outside of the purview"
the journal""

Accepted but refused confuses me. Anyone know?

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grzm
They're two separate journals:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology_(journal)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology_\(journal\))

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Astro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Astrobiology)

You're not the first to be confused :) The first line of each Wikipedia
article is "Not to be confused with [the other journal]."

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jlebrech
maybe we could detect space "chemtrails" to know if other species have
developed faster than light travel.

