Intelligence in dinosaurs

[hypervalent_iodine]

Well I don't know, the topic is the intelligence of dinosaurs, and everyone here seems to be debating how intelligent they were or how likely it is that they were intelligent.

 

!

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[cladking]

I'm aware of no evidence that would support the belief that dinosaurs had any sort of civilization nor any other technology.

 

What do I know, I misunderstood the subject of the thread.

[Moontanman]

I'm aware of no evidence that would support the belief that dinosaurs had any sort of civilization nor any other technology.

 

What do I know, I misunderstood the subject of the thread.

 

 

Me either, the conjecture was if they did would we be able to see it across the geological column, what our civilization would look like 65,000,000 years from now is a good comparison.

[cladking]

If there had been technology we would have found it and the technology that led to it. There would be fossilized dinosaur garbage and other such artefacts. We could have even found fossilized cities and houses but these would be difficult to recognize.

 

There should be ample evidence if they had any sort of technology other than basic farming such as termites. In aggregate they might have had some impressive structures and practices but not technology bourn of science we would could recognize as science.

 

 

Me either, the conjecture was if they did would we be able to see it across the geological column, what our civilization would look like 65,000,000 years from now is a good comparison.

 

Modern humans will be very well known for a very long time. We will leave a fossil record so complete that our language can even be reconstructed.

[Moontanman]

If there had been technology we would have found it and the technology that led to it. There would be fossilized dinosaur garbage and other such artifacts. We could have even found fossilized cities and houses but these would be difficult to recognize.

 

 

Garbage is a good point, I'm not sure if garbage would fossilize but it is one thing that we produce enough of that possible fossilization could occur. it's important to realize that very little gets fossilized. Fossilization is a very rare process.

 

 

 

 

There should be ample evidence if they had any sort of technology other than basic farming such as termites. In aggregate they might have had some impressive structures and practices but not technology bourn of science we would could recognize as science.

 

 

yes, we would recognize it but how long do things like newspapers or plastic bottles last? Our Earth has changed drastically since the dinosaurs, and technology is not exactly built to last.

 

Some good comparisons..

 

http://www.divinecaroline.com/33/49745-landfill-trash-really-last

 

a Beer bottle may last a million years if undisturbed.

 

http://padmum.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/592/

 

Beer bottles seem to be a problem...

 

http://earthwiseharmony.com/KIDS/EH-How-Long-Does-Rubbish-Last.html

 

I'm not sure how accurate these are, they do seem to have a bit of an agenda.

 

Modern humans will be very well known for a very long time. We will leave a fossil record so complete that our language can even be reconstructed.

 

 

What would we leave behind that could allow our language to be reconstructed?

[SamBridge]

 

 

Me either, the conjecture was if they did would we be able to see it across the geological column, what our civilization would look like 65,000,000 years from now is a good comparison.

But, didn't they make it across in the form of birds? That was the point earlier in the topic, and this is where it starts to get fuzzy with whether or not it pertains to the topic, because we need some way of getting a general sense of how intelligent they are to see how they have evolved, but how do we know for sure how intelligent they are? Based on research I did I would say and other zoologists many birds have emotion capacities equal to younger humans, so in some ways they did come a long ways.

Edited January 18, 2013 by SamBridge

[Moontanman]

But, didn't they make it across in the form of birds? That was the point earlier in the topic, and this is where it starts to get fuzzy with whether or not it pertains to the topic, because we need some way of getting a general sense of how intelligent they are to see how they have evolved, but how do we know for sure how intelligent they are? Based on research I did I would say and other zoologists many birds have emotion capacities equal to younger humans, so in some ways they did come a long ways.

 

 

Yes they did make in the form of aves, but birds are to dinosaurs as bats are to mammals. all birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs were birds...

 

My basic premise is two fold, can we really say how intelligent dinosaurs could have been and if they did achieve some semblance of intelligence would it be obvious to us now.

 

Contrary to popular belief fossilization is rare, we only see a small fraction of the animals that lived in the fossil record. So it is possible that dinosaurs with intelligence simply haven't turned up in the fossil record and if the correlation of bird brains to mammal brains is correct it's quite possible we wouldn't recognize them if we did see them.

 

So the question is would we be likely to see the remains of a civilization across 65,000,000 years of time... doesn't have to be the equivalent of ours... Would we recognize stone tools made by dinosaurs? Would such tools be recognizable after so long a period of time? I think it is relevant to ask if some paleontologist actually found something resembling a stone tool in ancient strata would they just dismiss it as a fluke?

[SamBridge]

 

 

 

My basic premise is two fold, can we really say how intelligent dinosaurs could have been and if they did achieve some semblance of intelligence would it be obvious to us now.

 

But hold on, that "mammals are to bats" still applies. Humans are only one species of mammals, and there are still other intelligent animals. Birds are one of the only direct descendants of dinosaurs and look how smart they are, what if like humans, there was another dinosaur that would have become just as intelligent? It could easily happen in 65 million years given there's proof it already happened with of type of species. Perhaps birds aren't the maximum intelligence that dinosaurs could have achieved. Birds have ravens, mammals have us, cold-blooded reptiles have the monitor lizard, fish idk, probably some type of shark, invertebrates: the octopus with its 8 brains, ect, but what about dinosaurs themselves? I guess we'll never know.

Edited January 18, 2013 by SamBridge

[michel123456]

I have a speculation:

 

-Dinosaurs became intelligent and created a brilliant civilization that eventually came in contact with an alien race. After the third Worlds War, dinosaurs lose definitely . The alien race was so afraid of what happened that they tried to destroy anything alive on planet Earth. Better: they tried to sterilize it in order to avoid future disaster. The cheapest way was to spread huge amount of salt over the surface the planet (since salt was an element they could find on the planet) like the legend says the Romans did after winning over Carthage.

 

That's why there is salt in the oceans .

Edited January 18, 2013 by michel123456

[Moontanman]

I have a speculation:

 

-Dinosaurs became intelligent and created a brilliant civilization that eventually came in contact with an alien race. After the third Worlds War, dinosaurs lose definitely . The alien race was so afraid of what happened that they tried to destroy anything alive on planet Earth. Better: they tried to sterilize it in order to avoid future disaster. The cheapest way was to spread huge amount of salt over the surface the planet (since salt was an element they could find on the planet) like the legend says the Romans did after winning over Carthage.

 

That's why there is salt in the oceans .

 

 

The ocean were just as salty then as they are now.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater

 

 

 

Ocean salinity has been stable for billions of years, most likely as a consequence of a chemical/tectonic system which removes as much salt as is deposited; for instance, sodium and chloride sinks include evaporite deposits, pore water burial, and reactions with seafloor basalts.^[16] Following the ocean's formation, sodium no longer leached from the ocean floor, but instead was captured in sedimentary layers covering the ocean bed. Plate tectonics possibly forces salt under the continental land masses, where it slowly leaches again to the surface.

[D H]

So the question is would we be likely to see the remains of a civilization across 65,000,000 years of time.

Suppose that 40 years from now some ultimate calamity wipes humanity off the map. For example, nuclear + biological warfare, with nuclear winter and massive starvation wiping out the few survivors. Over the course of 65 million years, our coastal cities would be buried in silt and mud, which will eventually turn into sedimentary rock. Another ice age is due in about 80,000 years, and that will wipe out a lot of whatever little does survive. Africa will continue northward, turning the Alps into the next Himalayas. There won't be much, if anything that survives 65 million years of erosion and uplift.

 

More important is what some far future intelligent species won't find. We are already pretty close to having used up resources that have accumulated over billions of years. In another 40 years, we'll be very, very close to having done so. That far future species won't find any readily accessible deposits of coal, or oil, or natural gas, or metals. Almost all of our iron ore originated from the Great Oxygenation Event, when iron dissolved in the oceans combined with the newly formed oxygen to become insoluble rust and settled to the bottoms of the oceans. Most of our coal, oil, and gas originated in the Carboniferous. That we had readily accessible resources is, to me, prima facie evidence that we are the first intelligent species on this planet.

 

This is one of the reasons I'm dubious about finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. I suspect that a planet gets but one chance at forming a species intelligent enough to go into space. Once that species dies off, subsequent intelligent species won't find the resources needed to advance beyond stone age technology.

 

[Moontanman]

Suppose that 40 years from now some ultimate calamity wipes humanity off the map. For example, nuclear + biological warfare, with nuclear winter and massive starvation wiping out the few survivors. Over the course of 65 million years, our coastal cities would be buried in silt and mud, which will eventually turn into sedimentary rock. Another ice age is due in about 80,000 years, and that will wipe out a lot of whatever little does survive. Africa will continue northward, turning the Alps into the next Himalayas. There won't be much, if anything that survives 65 million years of erosion and uplift.

 

More important is what some far future intelligent species won't find. We are already pretty close to having used up resources that have accumulated over billions of years. In another 40 years, we'll be very, very close to having done so. That far future species won't find any readily accessible deposits of coal, or oil, or natural gas, or metals. Almost all of our iron ore originated from the Great Oxygenation Event, when iron dissolved in the oceans combined with the newly formed oxygen to become insoluble rust and settled to the bottoms of the oceans. Most of our coal, oil, and gas originated in the Carboniferous. That we had readily accessible resources is, to me, prima facie evidence that we are the first intelligent species on this planet.

 

 

 

Oil and natural gas continues to accumulate as we speak, oil deposits do not last billions of years geologic change would wipe out such deposits or turn them into coal. You do have a point about metals but up lifts and changing continents could bring up new deposits.

 

 

This is one of the reasons I'm dubious about finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. I suspect that a planet gets but one chance at forming a species intelligent enough to go into space. Once that species dies off, subsequent intelligent species won't find the resources needed to advance beyond stone age technology.

 

 

As i said above i doubt that due to geologic change, the deposits we drill for or mine are not everything they are the ones we have found easy to get to, 65,000,000 years could conceivably bring up new deposits of very nearly anything...

[cladking]

 

Garbage is a good point, I'm not sure if garbage would fossilize but it is one thing that we produce enough of that possible fossilization could occur. it's important to realize that very little gets fossilized. Fossilization is a very rare process.

 

I'm not going to be drawn into another discvussion about the nature of intelligence. Suffice to say all animalsa are intelligent and there's far less deviation between levels as people choose to believe.

 

But one thing is more certain and that is there were no technologically advanced dinosaurs. This doesn't even mean they couldn't be "scientific", merely that if they had technology then we would know.

 

Fossilization is rare in animals because flesh and bone tends to rot, be eaten or decompose before it can fossilize. Certainly this doesn't apply to most products of advanced experimentally based science. A wrist watch worn by a dinosaur would be far more likely to be preserved, at least in part, than the dinosaur itself. Garbage dumps would be treasure troves of knowledge since some products can last centuries waiting for the proper conditions to fossilize.

 

An animal can be far more intelligent than modern man and never develop technology. This is true because of the natures of intelligence, science, and technology. It is also true because of the natures of the specific animals. No matter how intelligent something like a whale might be, it remains a whale with highly limited means and perspectives to gain knowledge of its surroundings.

 

[Moontanman]

But one thing is more certain and that is there were no technologically advanced dinosaurs. This doesn't even mean they couldn't be "scientific", merely that if they had technology then we would know.

 

 

While I am reasonable sure you are correct I don't see how you can assert this as fact.

 

 

 

 

Fossilization is rare in animals because flesh and bone tends to rot, be eaten or decompose before it can fossilize. Certainly this doesn't apply to most products of advanced experimentally based science. A wrist watch worn by a dinosaur would be far more likely to be preserved, at least in part, than the dinosaur itself. Garbage dumps would be treasure troves of knowledge since some products can last centuries waiting for the proper conditions to fossilize.

 

All things decay, given geological movements even things like titanium parts will decompose, modern 'stuff" does not last forever. i gave some links to time lines of various products. if you have evidence to the contrary please post them for us. Remember we are not talking centuries here but millions of years, 65,000,000 years in fact.

 

 

 

An animal can be far more intelligent than modern man and never develop technology. This is true because of the natures of intelligence, science, and technology. It is also true because of the natures of the specific animals. No matter how intelligent something like a whale might be, it remains a whale with highly limited means and perspectives to gain knowledge of its surroundings.

 

 

While I tend to agree I don't see how this impacts this discussion ...

[cladking]

 

While I am reasonable sure you are correct I don't see how you can assert this as fact.

Definitions are sufficient really. The nature of technology is such that it will give rise to more thanb merely tools and instruments of discovering nature but will also serve the purposes of the discoverers. I can't know that a dinosaur would necessarily desire to knpow the time of day or position of the sun but they would have some needs that would be satisfied by technology. It is necessity that is the mother of invention and if there were no necessity there would be no invention. They would at least want to make a t-rex detector or tools for controlling their enviroment or predators. They would want means of flushing or raising food. If they lacked the tools and instruments then they lacked the technology.

All things decay, given geological movements even things like titanium parts will decompose, modern 'stuff" does not last forever. i gave some links to time lines of various products. if you have evidence to the contrary please post them for us. Remember we are not talking centuries here but millions of years, 65,000,000 years in fact.

Yes. All things decay. But most things made by science last a great deal longer than flesh and blood. This means they can sit for protracted periods waiting for the proper conditions to fossilize. Some of these things will require very long times to fossilize and some will occur relatively quickly. With complex machines some parts will fossilize at different rates than others so only parts might survive. I can imagine even the perfect enviroment that something like an IC chip could be almost perfectly fossilized. The point isn't they didn't have computers, the point is no technology is associated with them. It's illogical to believe anything can evolve from complex to simple and there is not even any simple technology associated with them.

 

I can't rule out they might have been scientists or more intelligent than humans but it's pretty safe to rule out any sort of technology beyond the sorts that animals are already known for. Fopr all I know they built their own pyramids but if they did then they did it without technology of the sort we have.

 

While I tend to agree I don't see how this impacts this discussion ...

Part of my initial confusion regarding the topic is the title. People are continuing to conflate intelligence and technology though. They are not related (though obviously some correlation probably exists).

 

[D H]

 

Oil and natural gas continues to accumulate as we speak, oil deposits do not last billions of years geologic change would wipe out such deposits or turn them into coal.

No, they don't, at least not to the extent they accumulated in the past. The Carboniferous (that's the source of almost all of our coal, and a sizable fraction of our oil) was a period of "life gone wild". Life was significantly more prolific in the Permian and the Jurassic than it is now. The Saudi oil fields are largely from the Carboniferous, the west Texas and Oklahoma oil fields from the Permian and Jurassic. Most of the oil we get now originated over 100 million years ago. That oil won't be available to this future intelligent species because it's almost gone now, and will be all gone by the time we die off.

 

There is some oil that originated less than 65 million years ago, but most of that is offshore (e.g., the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Venezuela). The reason it's offshore now is because that's where it was created (most oil is created in oceans and seas) and because 65 million years isn't all that long a period of time from a geological perspective. The same applies to oil being formed now. 65 million years from now, it will still be offshore. How is this future intelligent species going to know they need to drill to great depths offshore to find oil if they can't even advance beyond stone age technology?

 

You do have a point about metals but up lifts and changing continents could bring up new deposits.

There isn't going to be all that much uplift and changing of the continents in the next 65 million years. 65 million years isn't all that long a time in geological terms. Africa will plow into Europe, raising the Alps as high as the Himalayas are now, and Australia will plow into Indonesia (but not Asia, at least not yet). The rest of the continents will still look more or less like they do now -- and depleted of metals. That lack of metals is going to keep that culture in the stone age. Even if they do somehow advance beyond stone age technology, how are they going to skip over the need for coal? It was coal, not oil and gas, that powered the industrial revolution. Coal is old, and it originates from times when life was extremely prolific. Life has not been that prolific since, and probably can't be that prolific ever again. The Earth itself is starting to get old.

 

As i said above i doubt that due to geologic change, the deposits we drill for or mine are not everything they are the ones we have found easy to get to, 65,000,000 years could conceivably bring up new deposits of very nearly anything...

There aren't many such deposits to lift up, and 65 million years is too short a time span to lift much up.

 

 

Aside to cladking: Please stop with the off-topic posts. If you want to discuss how non-special humans are compared to other animals, start your own thread.

 

Moontanman, this is your thread, but I'm going to take a crack at refining it so as to avoid the off-topic nonsense. Suppose some species of dinosaurs had developed intelligence and language on the order of humans, only to be wiped out by the Chicxulub impact. Would we still be able to determine that this had happened if, when they died out, they had advanced to:

- The equivalent of Homo erectus / primitive Homo sapiens (primitive stone tools only)?

- Late stone age technology and started building there first cities?

- Bronze age technology (ancient Egypt)?

- Late iron age technology(ancient Rome)?

- Industrial era technology?

- Space age technology (dinosaurs on the Moon)?

[cladking]

Suppose some species of dinosaurs had developed intelligence and language on the order of humans, only to be wiped out by the Chicxulub impact. Would we still be able to determine that this had happened if, when they died out, they had advanced to:

- The equivalent of Homo erectus / primitive Homo sapiens (primitive stone tools only)?

- Late stone age technology and started building there first cities?

- Bronze age technology (ancient Egypt)?

- Late iron age technology(ancient Rome)?

- Industrial era technology?

- Space age technology (dinosaurs on the Moon)?

There are a limited number of ways to say this;

 

There is no evidence of technology associated with dinosaurs. This can be considered virtual proof that they lacked what we consider modern technology.

 

I'm surprised that in a forum given to speculation that other perspectives are so upsetting.

 

Perhaps the quoted material could make some interesting discussion on some forum and this might be exactly the right one.

 

 

 

-edited to add that I might well be missing the obvious here. I would start the indicated thread if I believed anyone would respond. I missed at least one thing and that is "Resident Experts" are a type of moderator.

 

Edited January 18, 2013 by cladking

[SamBridge]

No, they don't, at least not to the extent they accumulated in the past. The Carboniferous (that's the source of almost all of our coal, and a sizable fraction of our oil) was a period of "life gone wild". Life was significantly more prolific in the Permian and the Jurassic than it is now. The Saudi oil fields are largely from the Carboniferous, the west Texas and Oklahoma oil fields from the Permian and Jurassic. Most of the oil we get now originated over 100 million years ago. That oil won't be available to this future intelligent species because it's almost gone now, and will be all gone by the time we die off.

 

There is some oil that originated less than 65 million years ago, but most of that is offshore (e.g., the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Venezuela). The reason it's offshore now is because that's where it was created (most oil is created in oceans and seas) and because 65 million years isn't all that long a period of time from a geological perspective. The same applies to oil being formed now. 65 million years from now, it will still be offshore. How is this future intelligent species going to know they need to drill to great depths offshore to find oil if they can't even advance beyond stone age technology?

 

There isn't going to be all that much uplift and changing of the continents in the next 65 million years. 65 million years isn't all that long a time in geological terms. Africa will plow into Europe, raising the Alps as high as the Himalayas are now, and Australia will plow into Indonesia (but not Asia, at least not yet). The rest of the continents will still look more or less like they do now -- and depleted of metals. That lack of metals is going to keep that culture in the stone age. Even if they do somehow advance beyond stone age technology, how are they going to skip over the need for coal? It was coal, not oil and gas, that powered the industrial revolution. Coal is old, and it originates from times when life was extremely prolific. Life has not been that prolific since, and probably can't be that prolific ever again. The Earth itself is starting to get old.

 

There aren't many such deposits to lift up, and 65 million years is too short a time span to lift much up.

 

 

Aside to cladking: Please stop with the off-topic posts. If you want to discuss how non-special humans are compared to other animals, start your own thread.

 

Moontanman, this is your thread, but I'm going to take a crack at refining it so as to avoid the off-topic nonsense. Suppose some species of dinosaurs had developed intelligence and language on the order of humans, only to be wiped out by the Chicxulub impact. Would we still be able to determine that this had happened if, when they died out, they had advanced to:

- The equivalent of Homo erectus / primitive Homo sapiens (primitive stone tools only)?

- Late stone age technology and started building there first cities?

- Bronze age technology (ancient Egypt)?

- Late iron age technology(ancient Rome)?

- Industrial era technology?

- Space age technology (dinosaurs on the Moon)?

I see your point about the consumption of resources, but those materials aren't leaving Earth, matter isn't destroyed in chemical processes (which I'm guessing you know), many different elements could be re-isolated with the appliance of thermal energy and filtering techniques, using different acids, ect. Let's say a civilization used up a bunch of copper, had some big war, no one left. But, there's still copper barried under all that rubble. Using fire or thermal energy from volcanoes or possibly even the sun if they figured out how to do that, they can separate the copper out from whatever it's chemically combined with. I'm guessing they would probably do experiments by mixing different chemicals with whatever is left of our civilization, eventually they would find some chemical that combined with the copper and took it out of that material it was joined with and hooked it to some H ions, and then applied heat to break those bonds, that's essentially what people did already do discover different elements, like Bromine with Salt. Bromine is definitely more rare than copper, but with enough messing around with chemicals, we eventually just gathered enough sea water to make visible amounts of bromine from chemical reactions and heating.

Edited January 18, 2013 by SamBridge

[Moontanman]

No, they don't, at least not to the extent they accumulated in the past. The Carboniferous (that's the source of almost all of our coal, and a sizable fraction of our oil) was a period of "life gone wild". Life was significantly more prolific in the Permian and the Jurassic than it is now. The Saudi oil fields are largely from the Carboniferous, the west Texas and Oklahoma oil fields from the Permian and Jurassic. Most of the oil we get now originated over 100 million years ago. That oil won't be available to this future intelligent species because it's almost gone now, and will be all gone by the time we die off.

 

How do we know how fast they have been filling up in the past? Oil is being "produced" and filling up oil fields at varying degrees right now. old oil fields are filling up at a rate that is detectable and to some extent usable now. This does not mean that oil is in unlimited supply from our perspective but whether or not oil was made 200 million years ago or not oil is slowly refilling old oil feilds. Oil comes out naturally all over the earth. http://rense.com/general63/refil.htm http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/26/science/geochemist-says-oil-fieldsmay-be-refilled-naturally.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

 

These sources are not neutral and sadly are being used to try and stave off fear or peak oil but the fact remains that oil fields are refilling deep with in the Earth.

There is some oil that originated less than 65 million years ago, but most of that is offshore (e.g., the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Venezuela). The reason it's offshore now is because that's where it was created (most oil is created in oceans and seas) and because 65 million years isn't all that long a period of time from a geological perspective. The same applies to oil being formed now. 65 million years from now, it will still be offshore. How is this future intelligent species going to know they need to drill to great depths offshore to find oil if they can't even advance beyond stone age technology?

 

 

 

 

A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts says she believes that hitherto undetected gas and oil reservoirs lying at very great depths within the earth's crust could stave off the inevitable oil depletion much longer than many experts have estimated.

The scientist, Dr. Jean K. Whelan, whose research is part of a $2 million Department of Energy exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans, has found evidence of differences in the composition of oil over periods of time as it flows from greater to shallower depths. By gauging degradative chemical changes in the oil resulting from action by oil-eating bacteria, she infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface.

http://www.nytimes.c...nted=all&src=pm

This filling has been observed in the middle east, middle america the gulf of mexico and the north sea. it stands to reason that natural geological processes have destroyed a great deal of oil while making new reservoirs. I'm not willing to say that many millions of years from now no oil reserves will be left or that the oil we see now is all there ever was or will be.

There isn't going to be all that much uplift and changing of the continents in the next 65 million years. 65 million years isn't all that long a time in geological terms. Africa will plow into Europe, raising the Alps as high as the Himalayas are now, and Australia will plow into Indonesia (but not Asia, at least not yet). The rest of the continents will still look more or less like they do now -- and depleted of metals. That lack of metals is going to keep that culture in the stone age. Even if they do somehow advance beyond stone age technology, how are they going to skip over the need for coal? It was coal, not oil and gas, that powered the industrial revolution. Coal is old, and it originates from times when life was extremely prolific. Life has not been that prolific since, and probably can't be that prolific ever again. The Earth itself is starting to get old.

 

There aren't many such deposits to lift up, and 65 million years is too short a time span to lift much up.

 

Coal is often found on top of oil deposits and is thought by some to associated with each other.

 

 

 

 

 

Moontanman, this is your thread, but I'm going to take a crack at refining it so as to avoid the off-topic nonsense. Suppose some species of dinosaurs had developed intelligence and language on the order of humans, only to be wiped out by the Chicxulub impact. Would we still be able to determine that this had happened if, when they died out, they had advanced to:

- The equivalent of Homo erectus / primitive Homo sapiens (primitive stone tools only)?

- Late stone age technology and started building there first cities?

- Bronze age technology (ancient Egypt)?

- Late iron age technology(ancient Rome)?

- Industrial era technology?

- Space age technology (dinosaurs on the Moon)?

 

I seriously doubt the idea of space age dinosaurs and the idea of coal and oil (if modern thought is correct) not being used by an intelligent species does seem to negate advanced technology but the question remains about stone age to tron age dinosaurs.

 

The relitive abundance of easily smelted metals like native copper to native gold would also be a problem I think.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Phi for All
Attribution added for quote

[D H]

Let's say a civilization used up a bunch of copper, had some big war, no one left. But, there's still copper barried under all that rubble.

"Buried under rubble" would be what our cities look like in 65 hundred years. This thread is about what our cities would look like in 65 million years (or what 65 million year old dinosaur cities would look like now). In 65 million years, many of our northern cities will be ground to dust by multiple ice ages. The coastal cities will be ravaged by changing sea levels, occasional floods, and covered with deep layers of silt. Cities almost everywhere will be buried by hundreds or thousands of feet deep. They won't be buried in rubble. They will be buried in rock.

 

Perhaps some city somewhere might escape the ravages of time and still be detectable as an city 65 million years later, but perhaps not.

 

 

 

How do we know how fast they have been filling up in the past? Oil is being "produced" and filling up oil fields at varying degrees right now. old oil fields are filling up at a rate that is detectable and to some extent usable now. This does not mean that oil is in unlimited supply from our perspective but whether or not oil was made 200 million years ago or not oil is slowly refilling old oil feilds. Oil comes out naturally all over the earth. These sources are not neutral and sadly are being used to try and stave off fear or peak oil but the fact remains that oil fields are refilling deep with in the Earth.

That is abiotic oil nonsense. Peak oil is a very real phenomenon. While it's not as bad a problem as the scaremongers would have you believe, it is still a very real phenomenon. The reason it's not quite so scary as portrayed is that previously uneconomically viable fields become viable as oil prices increase.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/26/science/geochemist-says-oil-fieldsmay-be-refilled-naturally.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

FTFW. Your link was broken.

 

 

A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts...

 

 

 

FTFW also. Without that attribution to the source, it appears that you are quoting me as making that statement.

 

This article is a favorite amongst abiotic oil crackpots. Yes, there was a slight increase in production, but it was slight, and now it's just in decline. This apparently was caused by a small, previously unknown oil field seeping into this larger one.

 

Losh, Walter, Meulbroek, Martini, Cathles, and Whelan, Reservoir fluids and their migration into the South Eugene Island Block 330 reservoirs, offshore Louisiana, AAPG Bulletin, 86(8):1463-88 (August 2002).

 

Here's a graph of Eugene Island Block 330 oil production:

 

 

This was an exceptional case. The exception proves the rule, which is that oil is a finite resource and that we are depleting it.

 

Coal is often found on top of oil deposits and is thought by some to associated with each other.

Citation needed, and which "some"?

 

The consensus view is that coal is produced from terrestrial plants, oil largely from phytoplankton and zooplankton. Bury terrestrial plants under anoxic conditions long enough and you get coal (and some natural gas). Bury plankton long enough and you get oil (and some natural gas). They come from rather different sources. Oil does not turn into coal.

 

I seriously doubt the idea of space age dinosaurs and the idea of coal and oil (if modern thought is correct) not being used by an intelligent species does seem to negate advanced technology but the question remains about stone age to tron age dinosaurs.

 

The relitive abundance of easily smelted metals like native copper to native gold would also be a problem I think.

I agree with that final assessment.

[Moontanman]

 

That is abiotic oil nonsense. Peak oil is a very real phenomenon. While it's not as bad a problem as the scaremongers would have you believe, it is still a very real phenomenon. The reason it's not quite so scary as portrayed is that previously uneconomically viable fields become viable as oil prices increase.

 

 

I am not a abiotic oil nutter, Neither was Thomas Gold, he made a pretty good case for abiotic oil, gas, and coal that have not been confirmed but he did not say this oil was a factor in "us" using oil much faster than it is being produced. Sadly this line of research has gone crazy due to people who have taken his ideas out of context to mean that oil is being produced as or faster than we can use it. But I will concede that what we know at the moment points to oil being a limited resource. I think it's possible that even if oil is biotic that the deposits we see are upper level pools of oil that is coming up from deeper in the earth.

 

This is a problem for any advanced civilization that follows ours or us if we followed them.

 

FTFW also. Without that attribution to the source, it appears that you are quoting me as making that statement.

 

 

Sorry, the quote came from one of the links i posted...

 

 

Citation needed, and which "some"?

 

I have googled this until i am blue in the face and the key words just bring up more crazy stuff. Thomas Gold, in his book the Deep Hot Biosphere, cites several cases where anthracite coal is found on top of oil deposits. I am not at the new house yet but all my books are at the new house. Since this is not relevant to the idea of a dinosaur civilization I will concede the point until i can get to my books and see if I can show some references but it still doesn't affect the outcome of what we are discussing...

 

I agree with that final assessment.

 

 

So we are looking for signs of at best the equivalent of stone age type civilization?

 

 

[michel123456]

Maybe dinosaurs encountered fulgurant technological evolution and used coal and oil only for a few years (or maybe they were less in population number) and went quickly to solar power and wireless internet. That's why we found no underground cabling .

 

-----------------

Or

 

Maybe oil was emergent everywhere at the surface, as it is today in a very few places.

Edited January 19, 2013 by michel123456

[Moontanman]

I wonder what a real paleontologist would do if she found an arrow head among dinosaur bones? Of course the nutters lay claim to such things being found. Anachronisms are touted by many people...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact

 

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-bizarre-archeological-discoveries.php

[SamBridge]

Arrow heads that are sharp enough to hunt animals would imply one of three things: other people found the bones and buried the arrow heads there, probably thinking it was the relic of some kind of god o mythical being of power, Humans were around, or dinosaurs had arms fingers and coordination as well as the knowledge to manipulate obsidian using other rocks which depending on the number of them would imply they had advanced communication skills. The third one is a pretty big leap, and the second one is also a bit of a stretch. If the sediment had been disrupted such a localized region and arrowheads were found, it means someone dug there, most likely humans.

Edited January 20, 2013 by SamBridge

[SamBridge]

"Buried under rubble" would be what our cities look like in 65 hundred years. This thread is about what our cities would look like in 65 million years (or what 65 million year old dinosaur cities would look like now). In 65 million years, many of our northern cities will be ground to dust by multiple ice ages. The coastal cities will be ravaged by changing sea levels, occasional floods, and covered with deep layers of silt. Cities almost everywhere will be buried by hundreds or thousands of feet deep. They won't be buried in rubble. They will be buried in rock.

 

Perhaps some city somewhere might escape the ravages of time and still be detectable as an city 65 million years later, but perhaps not.

 

Ok, so 65 million years. What happens to all that rubble if it's not left over? It get's recycled and the heat from the interior of the Earth breaks down many of the man-made materials and through volcanoes and ore veins as well as ocean-floor vents and tectonic movement get's put back into the top of the crust and/or dispersed into the ocean. The only problem is that it would actually take a really long time for that to happen, so say we did use up every natural resource. It would be available in the future once it's recycled by the Earth, but it wouldn't be recycled for any species for at least a million years, but after that critical recycle time is up, everything's good to go.

Edited January 20, 2013 by SamBridge