Future Fossils

The world seems to be losing plant and animal species to extinction almost daily. The great majority of species that have become extinct in the past probably left few fossils, and all too often even partial remnants are found only with difficulty. Humans, as the most thoughtful and bemused of Earths inhabitants, should be documenting the remarkable diversity of life on Earth by artificially augmenting the fossil record now, before it's too late!

I propose we create Future Fossil beds in arid basins of the world where sediments are accumulating, and on the bottom of anaerobic bodies of water like the Black Sea. Into these fossil creation sites we place the complete and carefully arranged bones and shells of animals, wood of all sorts of trees together with their needles or leaves packed carefully in silt, and even insects encased in thick gobs of pine pitch or other resin. We might also want to include hardened ceramic figurines showing each animal or plant as it appeared in life along with the appropriate Future Fossil assemblage.

What a boon this will be 30 or 40 million years in the future, when sentient crustaceans evolved from tubeworms around deep-sea vents are checking out Earth's paleontology! Granted, we won't be around (certainly not personally, and probably not collectively) to receive their thanks. But once we have done our best in this regard at least we can go to sleep at night with our collective conscience unclouded.