I just watched a Geology Hub upload on the Cerberean Caldera super eruption in what is now Australia. It happened over 300 million years ago, but in terms of the total age of the planet, even 300 million years is a relatively tiny blip. So have there been any significant epics to truly say events like x, y, or z will never happen again – in any statistically significant way? Will there be another Deccan or Siberian Traps or Columbia River Flood Basalts – one geologic timescale day in the future and countless more in the eons to follow?
(Ref. mentioned not directly relevant to question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjRaIhec_E8)
over those timelines I’m not sure we can assume stability of ideas like planets and so on, sure - there might be some way of looking at this as a predictable system with overarching patterns that allow us to reasonably conclude some events are not possible past a certain point, but applying that specifically to a planet over a timeline like the heat death of the universe has problems like being too narrow in what is considered possible - I don’t know whether it’s genuinely impossible for some organism or natural event to intercede and create the conditions that bring about previously impossible geologic events again (you even consider this kind of possibility when suggesting Earth could survive the death of the Sun). The question seems somewhat broad and I’m not sure what you are really asking, to be honest.
I’m simply questioning my childish assumption that catastrophic mega events are relegated to the past. The assumption is based on the scopes of the existence of complex extant life and the relative calm of the present Holocene. I grew into the perception that mega events were of a bygone era because geologic time is not intuitive to children, and until recently I have not had the casual curiosity to expand my awareness and question said assumptions.
The existence of protohumans up to the present seemed grounded in some underlying truth of ongoing stability that now seems totally at odds with geological reality and timescales. The question here is grasping at straws in a way; hoping that perhaps this connection is wrong as I realize the finite potential of complex life as it exists presently.
I mean in all likelihood we have tens of millions of years and an ice age or two before a true mega event pushes life into much simpler forms from the immense pressure of planetary cataclysm. If we manage to master biology as an engineering field, we may escape such a planetary bound fate in the distant future, but as long as we are trapped in this planetary gravity prison, we are perpetually sentenced to death row by the judge of geologic time.
In other words I’m realizing the full extent of geology as a study of the future where no event present is relegated to the past. My mind then races to questions of what it would be like and the building signs of eminent cataclysm. I do not mean this like the emotional hype doomsday psychosis nonsense in clickbait media or the discovery channel. I mean more like from a hard science fiction (extremely amateur hobbyist) writers perspective. Even if most of humanity migrates to cislunar space or elsewhere, there will likely be a large population present on the planet. How that plays out across generations and how diversity of life is valued becomes interesting to me under the premise of biology as a fully mastered engineering field.
Of course it is mostly speculative within my interests and curiosities. Still I think there are a lot of people that share the assumption that the geologic past is not the future; that something fundamentally has changed; that we are masters of our own fate where we are the greatest and only risk to ourselves in perpetuity, perhaps only short of an astroid impact of sufficient magnitude.
to be honest, the inability of “humanity” to overcome and prevent climate disasters and prioritize the well-being and longevity of humanity makes me skeptical we have such a long-term future, i.e. the future on a geologic scale is irrelevant to us as a species
Biology as a technology will be our only potential long term future. All we need to do right now is access one near Earth large m-type astroid that was a planetesimal core. That would likely yield more mineral wealth than humans have accessed in the entire Holocene. Scarcity drives the present world. Planetary gravitational differentiation is a mean bitch that left us to fight over the scraps left over by eons of surface collisions. We live on the planetary flux and light junk that floats to the surface. The core of any differentiated body is quite literally the limitless treasure at the center of the Earth. If such a body is accessed, that upends scarcity and therefore all of our economic value systems. However it unlocks the wealth and resources needed to build O’Neill cylinder size cislunar habitats. Those habitats then force development of closed loop biological systems. Heat dissipation becomes the primary constraint in such a place. It actually becomes a primary currency and therefore shifts cultural values significantly. The removal of anonymous exploitation of environmental wealth due to a closed loop system like an O’Neill cylinder will be the main catalyst that makes the present look as backwards and primitive as the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, or Han Chinese of 2k+ years ago. We can build O’Neill cylinders up to 9.1 × 30 kilometers based on materials science of the 1970s. The main thing stopping us is access to resources and political will. A single m-type astroid with an Apollo program size effort is all it takes to enter a new epic that dwarfs the present.