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Anthropic rock
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HistoryAnthropogenic lithogenesis is a historically new event-process within the Earth. For millennia humans dug and piled only natural rocks. Archaeologists, during 1998, reported that artificial rock was made in ancient Mesopotamia [2]. British Victorians were very familiar with the durable mock-rock surface formations used in public parks, constructed of Pulhamite and Coade stone [3]. Concrete, as we know it today, dates from 1756. Worldwide, concrete's preparation adds at least 0.2 gigatonnes yearly to the atmosphere's CO2 gas stock and, thereby affects Earth's Greenhouse Effect. In 2007, about 7.5 - 8 cubic kilometers of concrete are created annually by humans. Classification and theoryThe USA geologist Dr. James Ross Underwood, Jr., born 1927, has foreseen humanity's need for a Fourth Class of rocks to be added to Earth and planetary materials studies which would supplement geology's long-identified igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic groups. His practical proposal for an "Anthropic Rocks" category [4] recognizes the pervading spread of humankind and its industrial products. Dr. Underwood's theoretical innovation is a logical extension of the near-constant redefinition event-process that terms such as igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary have already undergone because of scientific progress. FutureFuture macro-engineering of the Earth may involve the total envelopment of the planet with, among other materials, concrete [5]. NASA and others have offered many settlement proposals that entail the use of in-situ resources of the Moon and Mars, such as brick, by astronauts. The relatively inert nature of rocks has been exploited in many methods to immobilize chemical and/or radioactive wastes; the Australian researcher, A.E. Ringwood, developed a titanate ceramic called SYNROC, his acronym for "synthetic rock" [6]. D.J. Sheppard proposed Sun-orbiting space colonies, interplanetary and interstellar spaceships ought to be manufactured of concrete [7]. There have also been proposals for deep-diving submarines constructed of concrete [8]. Alan Weisman's THE WORLD WITHOUT US (2007)noted that anthropic rocks of all kinds, among other artifacts, will exist far into our planet's future even should our species disappear "tomorrow"! References
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Anthropic_rock". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |