British Victorians were very familiar with the durable mock-rock surface formations used in public parks, constructed of Pulhamite and Coade stone.
The US geologist James Ross Underwood Jr. advocated a fourth class of rocks to be added to Earth and planetary materials studies which would supplement geology's long-identified igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic groups.
The relatively inert nature of rocks has been exploited in many methods to immobilize chemical and/or radioactive wastes; the Australian researcher, A.E.
Alan Weisman in The World Without Us (2007) noted that anthropic rocks of all kinds, among other artifacts, will exist far into our planet's future even should our species disappear "tomorrow".
[citation needed] The rapid urbanisation of the past century has resulted in drastic biodiversity loss, as animals, plants and fungi have found themselves and their ecosystems smothered under tonnes of concrete.