Future Earth

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Future Earth

• Steve Dutch
• University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

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Why Look Ahead?

• Usually picture geologic time by looking back
• New Perspective
• Can you picture the U.S. in 1000 years?
• Thats an instant in geologic time
• Human activities are ephemeral compared to
  geologic time

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1000 Years

• 5-7 M8 quakes on San Andreas
• New Madrid and Cascadia quakes
• 10 Cascades eruptions
• Mississippi delta shift
• Niagara Falls retreats 900 meters
• Hawaii moves 90 meters
• Probable damaging meteor impact
• One or more supernovas

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Humans in 1000 years

• Probably many cities and nations will still be
  extant

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10,000 years

• 50-70 M8 quakes on San Andreas
• 100 Cascades eruptions
• 10-20 Mississippi delta shifts
• Niagara Falls retreats 9 kilometers
• Hawaii moves 900 meters
• Probable meteor impact with regional effects
• Hudsons Bay and Baltic drained
• Dozens of Supernovas
• Earth axis tilt 22-1/2 degrees

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Future Niagara Falls
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Past and Future Niagara Falls
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Humans in 10,000 years

• In 8,000 years we got from proto-Indo-European to
  English, Latin and Russian
• Time enough for new languages to evolve
• Will any word in any language still survive?

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100,000 years

• San Andreas shifted by 2.5 kilometers
• 1000 Cascades eruptions
• 100-200 Mississippi delta shifts
• Niagara Falls retreated to Lake Erie
• Loihi reaches surface?
• Numerous meteor impacts with regional effects
  probable
• Next ice age?
• New stars may form

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The Future Gulf Coast
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Stars Change Faster than the Earth
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Humans in 100,000 years

• Time enough to develop our civilization from
  Paleolithic technology
• Fewer natural resources but
• Old human deposits may be better sources than
  rocks

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1,000,000 years

• San Andreas shifted by 25 kilometers
• Large new Cascades volcanoes
• 1000-2000 Mississippi delta shifts
• Ten ice ages?
• Loihi and Kilauea as large as present Mauna Loa
• Several collapses of Hawaiian shields
• Several supervolcano eruptions
• Meteor impact with global effects probable

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The Future San Andreas
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Bright Stars in the next Million Years
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Humans in 1,000,000 years

• Human race itself may evolve
• If society collapses long enough, different gene
  pools may speciate

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What Will Endure 1,000,000 years?

• Steel corrodes
• Titanic and Arizona will be gone in 1000 years.
• Most likely to survive no steel, solid
• Highway and canal cuts
• Earth fill dams
• Open pit mines and mine dumps
• Large monuments (Mount Rushmore, Pyramids)

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What Will They See of Us?

• Pleistocene mass extinction
• Rapid global spread of human artifacts, reduction
  of forests, and spread of domestic animals
• Sixth Extinction?
• Many endangered organisms would never show up in
  fossil record
• Caution in comparing present extinctions with
  past
• Our choice

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Future Earth?
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Long-Term Climatic Trends

• Brightening of the Sun
• Capturing of CO2 by carbonate rocks?
• Moist greenhouse effect
• Runaway CO2 Greenhouse Effect
• Venus conditions

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Planetary Habitable Zones

• Primarily in the Liquid Water Zone
• Cant be too warm
• Water Vapor in upper atmosphere broken down by
  solar UV and charged particles (photodissociation)
  
• Hydrogen escapes to space

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Planetary Habitable Zones
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The Ultimate Long-Term Forecast

• Slow warming trend for the next billion years
• Increasing humidity
• CO2 decrease leads to extinction of plants?
• Boiling and evaporation of the oceans

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The Oreo Model of Life History

• Micro-organism Earth (0-3 billion years)
• Multicellular Earth (3-5 billion years)
• Micro-organism Earth (5-6 billion years)
• The white creamy middle