Latest news with #rockcycle
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The Rocks Beneath Your Feet Are Younger Than Your Parents and Made of Your Trash
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: The rock cycle naturally takes thousands to millions of years, but scientists just identified a new form of rock that cements in under four decades. Researchers believe the natural cements found in industrial waste react with the ocean, leading to rapid cementation. Experts were able to estimate the cementation timeline using modern objects found in the rock, some of which include a zipper, a King Charles V coin, and a soda tab. Fossils are amazing; not only can they spark inspiration for iconic movie franchises (I'm looking at you, Jurassic Park), but they more importantly also provide accurate timestamps that help researchers piece together history from across millennia. Incredibly, scientists are starting to find examples of a new kind of fossil—well, sort of. Researchers from the University of Glasgow found modern society's detritus, including things like soda tabs, cemented inside a new form of rock. Published in the journal Geology, the study reconsiders everything we know about the rock cycle and how humans affect it. Typically, rocks take thousands to millions of years to form, with processes like heating, compaction, and melting producing different types of rock over long periods of time. The recent study, however, found that the anthropoclastic rock cycle is forming rocks in just 35 years rather than hundreds. Researchers realized this when they were studying slag deposits—or byproducts from industrial production—at Derwent Howe in West Cumbria. The region was formerly home to steel and iron-making plants, and scientists noticed irregular formations in the coastal cliffs, leading them to investigate 13 different sites in the area. Using methods including electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy (chemical analysis), the team determined the slag is made of 'natural cements' like calcite, goethite, and brucite. They explain in the study that the rapid cementation is likely a reaction between the waste and the sea water. Researchers were able to pinpoint just how rapid this new rock formation is by using the 'anthropogenic material'—or, more simply put, modern junk—they found hiding inside the rock. 'We found both a King George V coin from 1934 and an aluminium can tab with a design that we realised couldn't have been manufactured before 1989 embedded in the material,' John MacDonald, co-author of the study, explained in a press release. 'This gives us a maximum time frame of 35 years for this rock formation, well within the course of a single human lifetime.' Other discoveries include a zipper, copper wire, and even a tire. 'This is an example in microcosm of how all the activity we're undertaking at the Earth's surface will eventually end up in the geological record as rock,' MacDonald continued, 'but this process is happening with remarkable, unprecedented speed.' Researchers also expressed the environmental concerns the new rock form poses. The study suggests that we don't have as much time to dispose of loose waste material as we previously believed—and it only gets worse after it hardens. According to experts, excess anthropoclastic rocks could affect life both above and below the water's surface, especially as coastal ecosystems change with rising sea levels. 'What's remarkable here is that we've found these human-made materials being incorporated into natural systems and becoming lithified—essentially turning into rock—over the course of decades instead,' co-author Amanda Owen said in the release. 'It challenges our understanding of how a rock is formed, and suggests that the waste material we've produced in creating the modern world is going to have an irreversible impact on our future.' While this isn't the first time the anthropoclastic rock cycle was recorded, it is the first time researchers could put a definitive timeline on the process. The team explained in the release that the effects of anthropoclastic rock aren't currently included in models of erosion and land management, which are crucial parts of combating climate change. In the future, the researchers hope to study more deposits throughout Europe and further understand the rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
Forbes
30-05-2025
- General
- Forbes
Humanity's Trash Is Turning To Rock
Human garbage Researchers from the University of Glasgow have found that trash and slag, an industrial waste product produced by the glass and steel industry, is turning into solid rock in as little as 35 years. In a new study, the researchers have documented for the first time a new "rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle," which mimics natural rock cycles but involves human material over accelerated timescales. It all started when one of the authors came across an aluminum tab found encased in a strange rock along the coast of Derwent Howe in West Cumbria. Derwent Howe was home to iron and steel-making foundries during the 19th and 20th centuries, and its coast accumulated an estimated 27 million cubic-meters of furnace slag over the course of its industrial history. The slag deposits have formed cliffs of waste material that are being eroded by coastal waves and tides forming sedimentary rocks — resembling the natural rock cycle. A chemical analysis shows that the slag contains calcium, iron, magnesium and manganese. These elements are highly chemically reactive, which is key to causing the accelerated process of rock formation. When the slag is eroded by the sea, it exposes the material to seawater and air, which interacts with the slag's reactive elements to create natural cements including calcite, goethite, and brucite. These cements are the same materials that bind together natural sedimentary rocks, but the chemical reactions cause the process to happen much faster. 'For a couple of hundred years, we've understood the rock cycle as a natural process that takes thousands to millions of years,' explains corresponding author Dr. Amanda Owen of the University of Glasgow's School of Geographical and Earth Sciences. As the eroded slag is deposited and cemented, it incorporates trash carried by waves and currents to the coast. "What's remarkable here is that we've found these human-made materials being incorporated into natural systems and becoming lithified — essentially turning into rock — over the course of decades instead. It challenges our understanding of how a rock is formed, and suggests that the waste material we've produced in creating the modern world is going to have an irreversible impact on our future." Almost like real fossils, this trash can be used to date the new 'anthropoclastic rock." "We were able to date this process with remarkable precision," says Dr. John MacDonald, a co-author of the study. 'We found both a King George V coin from 1934 and an aluminum can tab with a design that we realized couldn't have been manufactured before 1989 embedded in the material. This gives us a maximum timeframe of 35 years for this rock formation, well within the course of a single human lifetime." Plastiglomerates, a sort of rock resulting from marine plastic pollution, were described for the first time in 2014 from a beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. Since then similar deposits were found along the shores of the Portuguese island of Madeira, the island of Giglio in the Tyrrhenian Sea and in Cornwall in southwest Britain. As plastic pollution is nowadays widespread, likely also plastiglomerates will become more common. 'I think it's very likely that this same phenomenon is happening at any similar slag deposit along a relatively exposed coastline with some wave action anywhere in the world,' explains Dr. David Brown, the paper's third author. The study,"Evidence for a rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle," was published in the journal Geology. Additional material and interviews provided by the University of Glasgow.
CBC
07-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Humans are accidentally making new rocks with their industrial waste
Researchers have discovered a new rock cycle in which industrial waste rapidly turns into rock. As Johanna Wagstaffe explains, this fascinating new process raises serious environmental concerns.
