Welcome to the Anthropocene, Earth's new chapter (phys.org)
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-anthropocene-earth-chapter.htm...
Since 2009, a cloistered band of hard-rock geologists and other scientists have toiled on a mission of great consequence.
On Tuesday they will deliver the last of their findings—the location of ground-zero for the Anthropocene, the proposed geological epoch borne of humanity's outsized impact on the planet.
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-weight-world-fell-geologist-sh...
Zalasiewicz pointed to an "embarrassment of riches" of evidence locked in ice cores, sediment and coral skeletons: microplastics, forever chemicals, traces of invasive species, greenhouse gases, and the fallout from nuclear bombs.
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-proof-humans-reshaped-world-ch...
When aliens or our distant progeny sift through layers of sediment 500,000 years from now to decode the Earth's past, they will find unusual evidence of the abrupt change that upended life half-a-million years earlier: chicken bones.Much more than we are finding. The earth would be a mess with plenty of really puzzling events.
Wild tomatoes with narcissus and flounder genes for example.
Sudden extinction of entire groups of animals and plants
Radioactivity holes and missile holes fosilized with metals in the bottom
A collection of grey granite from Canada carved in lames of uniform thick. Plates polished for no reason and accumulated in specific locations. At 20 meters another set of lames of black granite and 30 meters far away a lot of yellow marble only known from Italy. All wrapped in asphalt, gravel, glass and concrete. Cities and cemeteries in particular would be a geological nightmare waiting for an explanation. Dumpsters would also be very strange
Gems also. Diamonds carved in impossible shapes all ending in a more or less conical tail. Strange collections of elements with unique properties of the periodic table found always together: Mixed minerals found near, gold, silver and platinum, at tens thousands of Km far away from its known mines. As they are often saved in fireproof boxes, would had survived miraculously in burnt areas.
Implants. Titanium fossils shaped like the femur of an animal and always the same animal would be enough to show a civilization.
The answer was "not much", aside from discrepancies in metals distribution, with intriguing concentrations of iron oxyde, nuclear waste, or gold.
I am aware it certainly isn’t the most scientific or authoritative of sources, but they made interesting points.
[0]: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117267/hum...