Silurian Hypothesis: Was there another advanced civilization before ours?

We humans are able to thrive here on Earth because of our courageous abilities to produce things and thus achieve our survival and evolution. What if someone told you that a pre-human industrial civilization existed before we got here and eventually disappeared?

That’s the whole point The Silurian Hypothesis suggests that an industrially advanced civilization once existed on the planet before us. Then figure out who this population might be and what the odds are that it actually exists.

Discovery of a possible new population

Complex life on our planet has existed for at least 400 million years. But we, as a species, only came to the point of developing an industrial civilization 300 years ago.

In 2018, two scientists put forward the following hypothesis: Could it be possible to detect geological traces of an extinct industrial civilization that existed millions of years ago? Their hypothesis was called Silurian, a reference to a fictional species featured in the series. Doctor Who. Historically, Silurians are technologically advanced humanoid reptiles that lived before humanity.

The article was published at: Astrobiology JournalIt does not fully state that this civilization existed, but rather suggests investigating whether “geological fingerprints” of this population can be found in the Earth’s geological record. This is an approach that opens up space for the study of Earth’s past and even the search for intelligent life on other planets.

One of the authors — Adam Frank, professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester — noted that he has always been intrigued by the possibility of life elsewhere in the Universe and its parallels with the Anthropocene, the current geological period in which humans live. It has impacted the world to the point of no return.

“Is it common for any civilization that reaches our level of energy use to trigger its own version of climate change? I was thinking. If there are alien civilizations, would they also trigger climate change? thought Adam Frank.

After sharing these ideas, he took them to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences (GISS) to share with other climate researchers. “I went to the meeting with Gavin A. Schmidt (climatologist and NASA GISS administrator) and started talking about aliens. Then Gavin interrupted me and said: “Wait a minute, how do you know this is the only time there have been aliens? “Is there an advanced civilization on our own planet?” Frank said. Popular Mechanics. This allowed them to start exploring new possibilities.

What is the evidence?

As is known homo sapiens It has existed on Earth for approximately 300,000 years. If an industrial civilization really existed before us, it would have formed before then. So the two researchers had to face the challenge of going back millions of years to find traces of a potential pre-war civilization.homo sapiens.

“After a few million years, the Earth has almost resurfaced. You won’t have any statues or buildings or anything anymore. You have to look at each rock layer and then try to detect trends; you have to look for changes in things like carbon or oxygen isotopes, which are traces of things like carbon dioxide.” “An industrial civilization would release a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, just like we do,” Frank noted.

Schmidt and Frank were particularly intrigued by the period in geological history known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) because something different happened there: The Earth’s average temperature rose 8 °C above the average we have today, and the Earth reached this state. It became a temperate and frost-free place.

While investigating the period, they looked at the PETM’s carbon and oxygen isotope ratios and found spikes and falls that were incomparable to the rate at which carbon is currently choking the atmosphere. They also went on to study other sudden events during the geological record, including ocean anoxic events, which occur when the ocean runs out of oxygen.

No evidence has been found so far, but that doesn’t mean the hypothesis is no longer disputed. It was considered interesting as it would help search for signs of advanced civilizations on outer planets. The authors’ suggestion is that humans have left significant traces on the planet, altering the planet’s climate and ecosystems that will surely last for many years into our time. However, this does not mean that they can be detected millions of years later.

The paradox of the Silurian Hypothesis

The hypothesis, then, revolves around a kind of paradox. “The longer a human civilization lasts, the greater the signal to expect in the records. But the longer a civilization lasts, the more sustainable its practices must be in order to survive. The more sustainable a society is (in terms of energy production, for example),” the authors write. “Manufacturing or agriculture), the smaller its footprint on the rest of the planet will be, but the smaller the footprint, the fewer signals will be included in the geological record,” he wrote.

In other words, the lack of a clue can be a clue in itself. A civilization powered by sustainable energy, such as solar energy, hydroelectric energy, or geothermal energy, may leave little trace of its existence after extinction. This has led researchers to point out some natural events, such as anoxic events in the ocean during the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods, as signs of another civilization.

But not all scientists support this. “The hypothesis that Earth may have hosted long-extinct industrial civilizations, and that their presence may have been marked in the geological record associated with signatures of climate change, is fascinating; But even the authors are not convinced that this could be true,” replied Fordham University physics professor Stephen Holler.

Want to learn more about the most incredible discoveries in science? So stay tuned TecMundo Being on top of everything. Until next time!