ENORMOUS TECHNOSPHERE AND TECHNOFOSSILS OVER THE EARTH

The term technosphere refers to those human-constructed structures that facilitate life on earth. These include houses, farms, factories, roads, mines, airports, shipping ports, smart phones, computers, coins, pens and CDS; and such disposed items in spoil heaps and landfills. An international team has first ever calculated the amount of earth’s technosphere.

The geologists from the University of Leicester have published their estimates in the journal The Anthropocene Review. It suggests that the amount of technosphere over our planet is an enormous 30 trillion tons! This accounts to over 50 kilos per square meter of the earth’s surface!

The technosphere concept was developed by Peter Haff, an US scientist who is also a co-author of this paper. The team says that it includes human and human organizations too as technosphere is a system with its own energy flows and dynamics.

This study highlights the fact that human impact has greatly reshaped earth- a concept known as anthropocene. Many of the technosphere can be preserved as ‘technofossils’ into the distant future to characterize and date the anthropocene. They also found that the technofossil species numbers has currently outnumbered the biotic species numbers on our earth. 

Content Source:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161130085021.htm

Image: https://www.nextnature.net/tag/technosphere/