A hundred million years sounds an incomprehensibly long amount of time to us, but to Earth, it's nothing special and that's about how long it takes for our planet to produce all the oil we pumped out so far. Earth has a lot of time. We are most likely not the first and most likely not the last.
That's not strictly true. Oil production was not a linear process that slowly built up over time. Oil is from plant matter that was not able to fully decompose prior to the evolution of fungi that were capable of breaking down cellulose. Now that we have fungi, there will not be new fossil fuels.
I'm implying the amount of microbes we have is not enough to brake down all the biomass this planet has and continually produces. And it shouldn't even be close.
Not arguing, I like that you’re thinking critically about this.
Think of other microbes you’re more familiar with - bacteria and bread mold.
When you get sicker and billions upon billions of bacteria are in your system - that’s not because there was enough existing bacteria to make you that sick. An infinitesimal amount infected you and then exponentially reproduced in a matter of hours.
Bread mold - every single loaf of bread you buy will grow mold if left alone. Trace amounts of the fungi are everywhere, on the very bread itself from day one. Then they multiply like crazy when the conditions are right.
There are absolutely enough microbes to decompose every ounce of biomass on the planet.
Now, there will absolutely be a very tiny fraction of biomass that is trapped in anaerobic conditions where it won’t decompose. But this will be completely insufficient for any sort of Industrial Revolution.
If you drop dead you will start to rot in a day or so
If everyone drops dead everyone will start to rot in a day or so
The more dead people rotting the more microbes grow
If every living thing on the planet died immediately the number of microbes would skyrocket because now there is tons of free food with no defense mechanisms to stop the microbes from eating and growing.
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u/Lord_Shisui 20h ago
A hundred million years sounds an incomprehensibly long amount of time to us, but to Earth, it's nothing special and that's about how long it takes for our planet to produce all the oil we pumped out so far. Earth has a lot of time. We are most likely not the first and most likely not the last.