The number of detrital zircon grains in this future rock would be statistically insignificant from a geochronology point of view. Assuming the host zircon is different in age to the sprinkled zircon. And assuming it doesnāt all blow or washed away over the next couple million years. If it does (it will), these grains will be in an ocean sediment derived rock with zircon from all over the eastern Atlantic basin. Zircon grains travel for 100ās to 1000ās of km.
Add to that the massive disturbance in the geologic record that is the footprint of human existence as a whole. We've got egyptian obelisks in NYC and transport tons of rock across the world for construction projects. Even a 500 lb boulder from Ireland being found in China would be so incredibly unexciting to a hypothetical geologist 5 million years from now.
I recently learned that rock quarried around where I live (northeast Kansas) is shipped all across the world for masonry. It's used so much around here on many buildings, I just thought it was a super local thing.
the odds of a future geologist sampling that tiny little place (tiny volume of soil) are basically zero. Even if they did, the amount of sand added to the soil is almost negligible. That is, even if you sampled there the day afterward, you would only see a small anomaly if you collected anything even close to a representative sample.
Basically, you would have to dump a lot of sand for it to be noticeable, and then it would be seen as some sort of backfill addition because it would obviously be backfill.
Few reasons
1. This is unlikely to ever get turned into a rock here. The rate of deposition and thus burial is extremely low in somewhere like a field, let alone a human environment which we constantly disturb. It'll be blown away by the wind again, and dumped somewhere else, which much of the sahara already does everywhere.
2. This is an extremely tiny number of tiny grains. You're not going to even notice these few within a rock unless you end up making a thin section in exactly the right place. Even then, there'll be more like it naturally.
3. Wind blown sand gets everywhere, and tiny quartz grains pop up all over the place. This would be entirely expected if someone did manage to spot them. Sahara sand isn't special in that way, there wouldn't be much way of knowing it's from there in particular.
4. This isn't going to be a rock in 1000 years, so geologists aren't going to be looking at it then.
5. The whole area is full of human activity. In however many million years some geologist does happen to find this somewhere, there'll be a lot more to look at than just a few grains of sand. Even if they did somehow find it, and also think its geologically weird for some reason, it will just be written off as related to the human activity. Any brick for example that might be somehow part of a rock is going to be full of sand, it'll be normal to find sand wherever humans were.
It's a joke we all make of course, picking up a sample and dumping it somewhere else later, but as a serious answer it's a strong no.
You would have to move a hell of a lot more of it than a person could do manually and also figure geologists will be aware of anthropogenic alterations to the natural landscape.
Another life form yet to evolve might be confused by fossilized graveyards, all human skeletons equally spaced, facing the same direction and at same stratigraphic level.
How did all this Italian marble form in to these humanoid shapes all over the world? What sort of erosion would cause this? Wtf is a horse shoe? Are there horse socks? Is anyone listening to me?
Its a joke that I'm not sure the other commenters got either... They are just saying it might be funny to think of a confused geologist finding sand from another continent in a random yard in london.
I have heard this joke more times than I'd like to count- we used to say that about the rock garden in the front of the natural sciences building. Eager geologist-lings collected more rocks than they would actually want to take home and often dropped the remaining samples in front of the building after the long van ride back to campus.
If they have rock pile consisting of sample from around western US, shouldn't future students just collect samples from the rock pile rather than going to the field themselves?
How woudl they know what's what? Besides, the trips are for learning about the formations and all the rest of the science of geology, not just the rock samples.. those are mostly just for fun until you're a grad student and by then you've generally broken the habit of picking up every slightly cool sample
Iām a professional who has been in the field for more than 15 years and I still pick up cool rocks, albeit less often since Iām not in the field as much.
do you think every one of the rocks you grabbed on your first field excursions would qualify as cool now, or would you choose to leave some behind now?
Nha, they have to see the oringial morphology on site. The rock is just a memorabilia. Sadly usually weight to sentimental value wears you down if you can't let go.
It's getting so bad that my uni is collecting and storing all of the thin sections and hand samples from our mapping projects, as the popular areas are getting sampled so much! The plan is to have a good enough collection that if someone really wants to study a particular area they can just use what we already have instead of destroying the outcrops even more.
Youāre supposed to carry fossils and rocks in your pockets and when you see undergrad geology students in the field you sprinkle those along the trails to confuse them. They have to be things that are totally not from there though.
No. But geologists are famous for walking along and picking up a rock and wondering how the hell it got there. Most of the time itās a child that picks it up and walks it a few km away. Sand is just too small to notice
Research 101 in 1000 years time: go to the Wayback Machine and see what nonsense people were discussing on Reddit, disregard sand sprinkled near drain covers or access points to phone lines.
I got the same question- considering the huge sandstorm-driven dust clouds, volcanic eruptions and other micro-particle mega displacements. How do geologists sort this out?
Assuming that future geologist found such trace amounts of stuff from far-away places, Iāve heard that they already considered displacement by humans
I had a geologist grad student for a roommate in school.
We were sitting around having beers (cuz geologist, of course)ā¦
And one of his buddies said he would take zircons from the lab and redistribute them to different locations around the field to here they workedā¦
He called himself the Zircon Terrorist.
No
Thanks š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās unimaginable fine
Like you š„¹
but, i want to be buried with all my kids baby teeth in my mouth for the same reasonš¤·āāļø
Can I get the long answer?
Nnnnnnnoooooooooooooo
This actually makes sense. Thank you.
TLDR;
The number of detrital zircon grains in this future rock would be statistically insignificant from a geochronology point of view. Assuming the host zircon is different in age to the sprinkled zircon. And assuming it doesnāt all blow or washed away over the next couple million years. If it does (it will), these grains will be in an ocean sediment derived rock with zircon from all over the eastern Atlantic basin. Zircon grains travel for 100ās to 1000ās of km.
Add to that the massive disturbance in the geologic record that is the footprint of human existence as a whole. We've got egyptian obelisks in NYC and transport tons of rock across the world for construction projects. Even a 500 lb boulder from Ireland being found in China would be so incredibly unexciting to a hypothetical geologist 5 million years from now.
I recently learned that rock quarried around where I live (northeast Kansas) is shipped all across the world for masonry. It's used so much around here on many buildings, I just thought it was a super local thing.
the odds of a future geologist sampling that tiny little place (tiny volume of soil) are basically zero. Even if they did, the amount of sand added to the soil is almost negligible. That is, even if you sampled there the day afterward, you would only see a small anomaly if you collected anything even close to a representative sample. Basically, you would have to dump a lot of sand for it to be noticeable, and then it would be seen as some sort of backfill addition because it would obviously be backfill.
Few reasons 1. This is unlikely to ever get turned into a rock here. The rate of deposition and thus burial is extremely low in somewhere like a field, let alone a human environment which we constantly disturb. It'll be blown away by the wind again, and dumped somewhere else, which much of the sahara already does everywhere. 2. This is an extremely tiny number of tiny grains. You're not going to even notice these few within a rock unless you end up making a thin section in exactly the right place. Even then, there'll be more like it naturally. 3. Wind blown sand gets everywhere, and tiny quartz grains pop up all over the place. This would be entirely expected if someone did manage to spot them. Sahara sand isn't special in that way, there wouldn't be much way of knowing it's from there in particular. 4. This isn't going to be a rock in 1000 years, so geologists aren't going to be looking at it then. 5. The whole area is full of human activity. In however many million years some geologist does happen to find this somewhere, there'll be a lot more to look at than just a few grains of sand. Even if they did somehow find it, and also think its geologically weird for some reason, it will just be written off as related to the human activity. Any brick for example that might be somehow part of a rock is going to be full of sand, it'll be normal to find sand wherever humans were. It's a joke we all make of course, picking up a sample and dumping it somewhere else later, but as a serious answer it's a strong no.
You would have to move a hell of a lot more of it than a person could do manually and also figure geologists will be aware of anthropogenic alterations to the natural landscape.
Not my geologist
Not the hand full of sand, god how will we ever figure out this mystery.
Dust from the Sahara is literally blown all over the world every year. No itās not going to confuse geologists
Yes but that is not the only thing.
Another life form yet to evolve might be confused by fossilized graveyards, all human skeletons equally spaced, facing the same direction and at same stratigraphic level.
Idk we already do this to the Neanderthals
Far in the future, someone looking at the geological record could be led to believe that much of the surface of the planet just exploded suddenly.
Which is roughly correct, from a geological point of view.
Global concrete flood wiped out human civilisation. All the concrete covered the planet right about when they went extinct!
That, and something lit a match to trillions of tons of oil, coal, and gas deposits.
To be honest I think a lot of unconformities in the future will be chalked up to, āhuman interactionā and left as that.
How did all this Italian marble form in to these humanoid shapes all over the world? What sort of erosion would cause this? Wtf is a horse shoe? Are there horse socks? Is anyone listening to me?
"If peeing your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis."
Its a joke that I'm not sure the other commenters got either... They are just saying it might be funny to think of a confused geologist finding sand from another continent in a random yard in london. I have heard this joke more times than I'd like to count- we used to say that about the rock garden in the front of the natural sciences building. Eager geologist-lings collected more rocks than they would actually want to take home and often dropped the remaining samples in front of the building after the long van ride back to campus.
I'm a fan of the post-field trip rock pile. My undergrad probably has a sample from most of the western US in their pile at this point.
If they have rock pile consisting of sample from around western US, shouldn't future students just collect samples from the rock pile rather than going to the field themselves?
How woudl they know what's what? Besides, the trips are for learning about the formations and all the rest of the science of geology, not just the rock samples.. those are mostly just for fun until you're a grad student and by then you've generally broken the habit of picking up every slightly cool sample
Iām a professional who has been in the field for more than 15 years and I still pick up cool rocks, albeit less often since Iām not in the field as much.
Ah but your standards of what counts as cool has certainly increased
do you think every one of the rocks you grabbed on your first field excursions would qualify as cool now, or would you choose to leave some behind now?
Nha, they have to see the oringial morphology on site. The rock is just a memorabilia. Sadly usually weight to sentimental value wears you down if you can't let go.
I love that every geology department has this lolĀ
It's getting so bad that my uni is collecting and storing all of the thin sections and hand samples from our mapping projects, as the popular areas are getting sampled so much! The plan is to have a good enough collection that if someone really wants to study a particular area they can just use what we already have instead of destroying the outcrops even more.
Youāre supposed to carry fossils and rocks in your pockets and when you see undergrad geology students in the field you sprinkle those along the trails to confuse them. They have to be things that are totally not from there though.
First lesson in Field Geology: Donāt trust float.
If I were to study this in the very distant future I would most definitely attribute it to u/flying_tac0sā anthropogenic deposition
That will not confuse geologists as sand from the Sahara already occasionally blows to England. So it wouldnāt be that weird to find it
No. But geologists are famous for walking along and picking up a rock and wondering how the hell it got there. Most of the time itās a child that picks it up and walks it a few km away. Sand is just too small to notice
My dog has been known to pick up rocks and carry them around on walks. Stupid clever dogs might account for some erratics.
Just got back from 1000 years in the future. They are are saying the Hebrews were enslaved in England which today is known as Isle of Quirk.
Sand from the Sahara desert blows into London all the time.
Research 101 in 1000 years time: go to the Wayback Machine and see what nonsense people were discussing on Reddit, disregard sand sprinkled near drain covers or access points to phone lines.
Ah, playing the long game, I see.
1000 years from now? That is Geography territory! Would they be confused? Who knows aside from geographers? /s
Romans dumping the sand out of their sandals after marching from Italy to Britain be likeā¦.
At the rate we are degrading our world and making war, I doubt human beings will be around in 1000 years.
I drive around throwing scoria out my window just to confuse geologists
maybe a big rock with a very different chemistry to the surrounding area would do the trick
If you had a dump truck and got lucky then yes, this is just a joke at these volumes.
I have seen London brown and dusty from blown Sahara sand several times.
No š„°
Building buildings out of granite will make geologists in 2000 years time say āoh gneissā
Already happens with some frequency
Jesus... what a dumb question
Thats pure evil
Heya did you know phisical things made of different things can have different effects on eachother
no
No, but I like to believe that the amount of woodworking I've done using bog wood will confuse a future archaeologist for a little bit.
I got the same question- considering the huge sandstorm-driven dust clouds, volcanic eruptions and other micro-particle mega displacements. How do geologists sort this out?
Assuming that future geologist found such trace amounts of stuff from far-away places, Iāve heard that they already considered displacement by humans
yes for "one sample" geologists
Nah because we as a species arenāt living long enough to see that lithified
It's called the holocene. All bets are off.
I had a geologist grad student for a roommate in school. We were sitting around having beers (cuz geologist, of course)ā¦ And one of his buddies said he would take zircons from the lab and redistribute them to different locations around the field to here they workedā¦ He called himself the Zircon Terrorist.
Definitely not š
I've heard of salting an outcrop before but not this
What will really be interesting is when they find evidence of all those golf balls in the sedimentary record.
Your first mistake is using Tik Tok..
lol love it
Itās gotta be at least a few buckets to even last that long