Geological TOS Review: Episode #7 - "What are Little Girls Made Of"

In the Star Trek episode “What are Little Girls Made Of” a vast system of subterranean ruins is discovered on the planet Exo-III. As the sun of the star system is fading, surface temperatures are below -100°C and the former inhabitants constructed a vast system of underground caverns to survive beneath the frozen surface, eventually perishing anyway.

Not only aliens, also humans dig into planets in the Star Trek universe. In the episode "The Devil in the Dark" the Enterprise visits a mining colony on the planet Janus VI, or more precise, inside the planet, as the mine is a large underground facility.

People were excavating tunnels way back in the Bronze Age. An 82 ft long tunnel in Tyrol, used to mine for copper ore, has been dated to 2800 BCE. In historic times, tunnels were constructed to provide water for settlements, like Mycenae around 1200 BCE and Jerusalem around 1000 BCE. The 541 ft long Malpas-Tunnel in France, constructed in 1679-1681, was the first traffic tunnel entirely excavated with the help of gunpowder. 

Humans nowadays create vast tunnel systems beneath cities, rail and road tunnels beneath mountains and even seas, mines to extract ore and boreholes that penetrate deep into Earth's crust. Especially during the great acceleration during the industrial revolution humans started to excavate large cavities, being orders of magnitude greater in scale as animal burrows.

 WATERS et al. 2018

Such cavities and galleries have a high potential for long-term preservation, as they are safe from surface erosion some will be preserved for millions and even billions of year into the future.

Geological TOS Review: Episode #5 - "The Enemy Within"

During a specimen-gathering mission on planet Alpha 177, a transporter malfunction creates an evil duplicate of Captain Kirk. Apparently, the transporter malfunction is caused by interference of the transporter technique with a magnetic, yellow ore found on the planet’s surface. The mineral is not identified in the episode but seems to possess some alien properties.

In many episodes, the crew of the Enterprise visits mining colonies or is on a mission to search for valuable minerals and crystals. There exists even a geological tricorder for prospecting resources, designed for analyzing rock samples and comparing them to the records memorized in the mineralogical database of the federation. By convention, the names of terrestrial minerals (a crystalline combination of one or various elements) end with the suffix "-ite", the denominations of elements with the suffix "- ium", "-um", "-on", "-gen" or "-ine". Unfortunately it seems that this nomenclature is not always applied with the necessary scientific accuracy in the 23th century. But to be fair, many of the minerals are unknown to the present day. And that's accurate, as there are indeed elements found only in stars and outer space, like Technetium, that don't form naturally on Earth.

Could such non-terrestrial elements form also extraterrestrial minerals? 

There are around 7,000 minerals known on Earth, but we still know little about other worlds in comparison. Over 300 minerals have been identified in meteorites. The number of minerals identified on planetary bodies is smaller and mainly detected by remote sensing or exploration with robots.  Around 130 minerals were discovered so far on Mars and 80 on the Earth's Moon. As some of those minerals were formed under conditions that don't exist on Earth, such as low gravity, or the complete absence of liquid water, many are indeed unknown in the Earth's environments.

A curious scientific blooper. In the episode part of the landing party is stranded on the planet, as the transporter doesn't work, and it is mentioned that the temperatures on the surface drop to -120°C during nighttime. Such temperatures would be only possible on a planet without an atmosphere, where temperatures can drop to -200°C. On Earth the coldest temperature ever measured was -90°C during the Antarctic winter.

Geological TOS Review: Episode #3 - "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was the second pilot produced for TOS, but actually the third episode broadcast in the United States. 

Captain Kirk has the command of the Enterprise when a distress signal from a spaceship, lost years before along the borders of the galaxy, is received. Following the signal, they soon encounter an energy field. As they try to fly into the field, impulses of energy cause some members of the crew to develop extrasensory perception abilities. Both helmsman Gary Mitchell and ship's psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner quickly develope god-like powers, threatening to destroy the Enterprise. As there is now way to control Mitchell, Kirk decides to leave Mitchell stranded on the nearby planet Delta Vega, a planet similar to Earth except it has a slightly smaller size, with an automated lithium cracking station operating there. The set of the barren and rocky landscape used to show the planet's surface was recycled from the episode (and rejected original pilot) "The Cage."

The matte painting of the cracking station on Delta Vega.

Mining an extraterrestrial world is still fiction, but science shows that it may be profitable. Asteroids are rich in platinum, iridium, palladium and gold. One hundred tons of rock from an asteroid might today be worth more than 9,000 dollars, compared to just 60 dollars worth the same amount of terrestrial rocks. Estimated 5,000 to ten millions of asteroids can be found near Earth and companies are already dreaming of future prospecting and mining spaceflights. Mining asteroids would not necessarily benefit Earth, as bringing the ore to Earth would be extremely costly, but might benefit nearby colonies, outposts or industrial complexes.

Mitchell escapes from his prison in the cracking station. Dr. Dehner, now also developing unknown powers, is able to distract and injure Mitchell, but is killed in the attempt to stop him. In the end Kirk must face the injured and weakened, but still dangerous Mitchell. After a hand-to-hand battle in the mountains and a ripped shirt, Kirk uses a phaser rifle to create a rock slide, killing Mitchell.

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Geological TOS Review: Episode #1 - "The Man Trap"

"The Man Trap" was the first episode ever aired of Star Trek - The Original Series (TOS), on September 8, 1966, even if it was the sixth episode produced. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) wanted an episode featuring a monster in space as a pilot to get the public's interest. In the episode Captain Kirk and his crew visit the alien planet M-113 to check on an archaeological expedition. The planet's surface appears lifeless, a desert environment with only sparse vegetation. However, ruins seen in the background testify that a long lost civilization once existed here.

In this episode Halite, sodium-chloride or common table salt, plays an important role. The archaeological outpost on the planet M-113 is infiltrated by a mysterious shape-shifting creature that requires salt to survive and is willing to obtain it by any means necessary. Crewman Darnell is the first victim of the "Salt-Vampire" and also the first "red-shirt" (wearing a blue shirt) to be killed in TOS. 

Another plot device are the ruins, remains of a never-explained civilization and it remains unclear if the creature is somehow related to the ancient megalithic builders. This poses an intriguing question. Without the ruins, would a hypothetical exo-scientist, as seen in the episode, be able to infer the existence of a former alien civilization?

What if so much time passed that even the hardest rock used for a monument turned into dust? Buildings and cities are surprisingly short-lived. Even modern iron and concrete resist weathering for just some decades to centuries. Monuments build from sedimentary rocks, like the pyramids, may last some thousand years in dry environments. Reliefs in massive rocks, like Mount Rushmore carved into Harney-Peak granite, may remain recognizable for some hundred-thousand years. 

Could other traces in the environment be used to infer the existence of a civilization gone for millions of years? Could the desert environment of M-113 be the result of the collapse of an alien civilization? Such questions may not only be of interest for the search of extraterrestrial civilizations in fiction and reality, but also for the future of humankind.

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Earth is the only planet we know for sure can host a technologically advanced civilization. Even if our technological wonders won't survive millions of years into the future, other traces will remain. Since the year 1500, more than three-hundred species of large vertebrates went extinct and many argue that we are witnessing the beginning of the sixth mass extinction. In just a few centuries, we have modified more than 70% of Earth's land surface. Humans today move ten times more sediments than all natural processes combined, like landslides or rivers.

Since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, humans have modified the concentration and flux of carbon and nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere. New artificial materials, like plastic, are polluting the environment. Future geologists may find rare traces like “technofossils” - anomalous minerals or unnatural materials like plastiglomerate in the geological record. It is unknown how long such artificial materials will survive in the geological record. If buried in sediments, like plastic fragments on the bottom of the sea, maybe some million years. Eventually, heat, pressure and time will break the molecules apart and erase any direct evidence for humanity's former presence on Earth.

Chemical signatures preserved in sedimentary rocks, caused by the changes in abundance of certain elements, like carbon (resulting from burning fossil fuels), nitrogen (used as fertilizer to feed seven billion people), radioactive or rare earth elements (used in modern technology), may still be detectable after billion of years. However, there are natural processes that may mimic such anomalous concentrations. The famous Oklo-reactor, a two billion years old uranium ore deposit that experienced a slow nuclear fission, was likely not built by an ancient civilization but formed by microbial activity.

Even climate change alone will not be sure evidence of a technologically advanced civilization. In the past, there were geological epochs with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide. For example, 55 million years ago, during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, over some thousands of years a massive flux of greenhouse gases from the ocean into the atmosphere occurred and Earth's global temperature rose by 8°C in response. However, the speed humans are changing the climate is unprecedented in the history of the Earth.

Combining various observations, like the rate of changes preserved in the geological record, the presence of anomalous materials, a spike of certain chemical elements and the extinction of species, future alien geologists visiting Earth may realize that a civilization, technologically advanced enough to influence the entire planet, once existed here. Will they find a thin layer of boundary clay, suggesting a sudden catastrophe ending this civilization? Was it a gradual demise following environmental problems? Or did the civilization survive still for thousands of years by adapting or changing its behavior in time? In the stratigraphic record time can be compressed and even future geologist may not be able to clearly distinguish between a sudden event, lasting just some centuries, or a prolonged era of a hundred thousand years.

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