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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMScott" data-source="post: 1429744" data-attributes="member: 11734">OK, but note that the 'why' question will have a big effect on the answer to 'what happens'. In a typical temperate environment, some large well-built structures will probably be around at 1000 years, but most of the smaller stuff will be rubble long before that. You probably won't even be able to tell where most of the cleared land once existed. Best odds for something being preserved are in deserts, and even there wind erosion would probably take it's toll.At 10000 years, you'd probably have to do archaeological digs to find evidence of humanity. At 100000, even that will only turn up fossils.Fire would only be a factor for a few centuries, I imagine - plant growth would probably be the major cause of destruction. Trees wouldn't be the main worry, grasses, lichens, creepers, vines, etc. would be the first to move in to a settled area. Trees would come in once some soil started to be uncovered.The only structure that might be secure after 1000 years would be something specifically designed to avoid environmental damage - for example, an underground bunker of some kind. Best to place it somewhere like the Canadian Shield where there's unlikely to be much tectonic activity.Vehicles likely wouldn't last a century - well, maybe the ones with plastic bodies would still be recognizable, but by 1000 years they'd be buried. I doubt the road network would outlast cars by more than a couple centuries, though maybe some bridges and such would still be recognizable in 1000 years.We're currently living in one of the great die-offs, particularly among large mammals which have seen species go extinct at a frightening pace for around 50000 years (three guesses what's killing them). So if humanity goes, there's suddenly a huge number of niches just waiting for something to fill them. Gould's big idea, punctuated equilibrium, holds that such an environment would be perfect for a burst of new speciation. Maybe even new families. Imagining what those might be is a matter of pure speculation, but a paleobiologist named Michael Boulter (author of "Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man") is putting his money on small mammals (assuming they're not wiped by the same thing that takes out humanity), birds, and insects.At 1000 years, you'd probably just see a lot of species expanding into the new environments. At 10000 years, probably a few early attempts at adaptation - predators get bigger, creatures adapt to new climates, that sort of thing. 100000 years is probably where you'd find the weird stuff.</blockquote>

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