{"id":255,"date":"2025-02-24T05:18:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T05:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2025\/02\/24\/technofossils-how-humanitys-eternal-testament-will-be-plastic-bags-cheap-clothes-and-chicken-bones-palaeontology-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-02-24T05:20:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T05:20:54","slug":"technofossils-how-humanitys-eternal-testament-will-be-plastic-bags-cheap-clothes-and-chicken-bones-palaeontology-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2025\/02\/24\/technofossils-how-humanitys-eternal-testament-will-be-plastic-bags-cheap-clothes-and-chicken-bones-palaeontology-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Technofossils\u2019: how humanity\u2019s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones | Palaeontology | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Fast food containers dominate ocean plastic, but aluminium drinks cans will also be part of our legacy. Pure metals are exceptionally rare in the geological record, as they readily react to form new minerals, but the cans will leave a distinct impression.<\/p>\n<p>Another fast food staple, chicken, is also destined for immortality. Bones are well known as fossils, but while those of modern broiler chickens are fragile \u2013 they are bred to live fast, dying fat and young \u2013 the sheer volume will ensure many survive into the geological record.<\/p>\n<p>At any moment, there are about 25 billion live chickens in the world, vastly more than the world\u2019s most abundant wild bird, say Gabbott and Zalasiewicz, making them likely to be the most abundant bird in all of Earth\u2019s history. The sudden appearance of vast numbers of a monstrous bird five times bigger than its wild forebear will certainly strike future palaeontologists.<\/p>\n<p>Clothes will also make an abrupt entry into humanity\u2019s fossil record. For millennia, clothes were made from natural and easily rotted materials such as cotton, linen and silk. Today, the world\u2019s growing population often wears mass-produced synthetic garments that are rapidly dumped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are making them in ridiculous amounts,\u201d says Gabbott \u2013 about 100bn garments a year, double the number 20 years ago. \u201cPeople would be surprised just how many clothes are actually out there in the environment as well. I work to clean rivers in the city of Leicester and about a quarter of the stuff that we take out is clothing. We also stick them into landfills, which are like giant mummification tombs.\u201d As the geologists say in their book: \u201cIt is already clear that much of modern fashion will end up being, in the deepest possible sense, truly timeless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The last of the signature technofossils is also the most solid example: concrete. It is already essentially a rock, so it is readily preserved, and it exists in colossal quantities. Enough concrete is cast each year to provide four tonnes to every person on Earth, adding to the existing 500bn tonne stockpile.<br \/>\n\u2014 Read on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2025\/feb\/22\/technofossils-how-plastic-bags-and-chicken-bones-will-become-our-eternal-legacy\">www.theguardian.com\/science\/2025\/feb\/22\/technofossils-how-plastic-bags-and-chicken-bones-will-become-our-eternal-legacy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fast food containers dominate ocean plastic, but aluminium drinks cans will also be part of our legacy. Pure metals are exceptionally rare in the geological record, as they readily react to form new minerals, but the cans will leave a distinct impression. Another fast food staple, chicken, is also destined for immortality. Bones are well [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}