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I'd like to know if it is possible for an advance civilization to have been on Earth for millions or even billions of years in the past. And that after dying or moving away, the remnants of their civilization could have been buried underground. Or sunk the bottom of the ocean due to movement of the plates and it's consequences.

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    $\begingroup$ Do you mean: could this have happened on Earth and would we know about it if it did? That question would be a bit speculative for our site, which is science-based. However, if your question is general about any Earth-like planet, we can migrate your question to our sister site at Worldbuilding which is explicitly for fiction not fact (but which can be science-based). $\endgroup$
    – gerrit
    Commented Apr 2, 2017 at 21:31
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    $\begingroup$ Without resorting to aliens or similar, my instinct is no: Because millions of years probably wouldn't have completely removed the evidence (at least not through plate movements, although it might be rather hard to spot anyway) and billions of years would put them before the emergence of multicellular life on the planet. $\endgroup$
    – Simon W
    Commented Apr 3, 2017 at 8:33

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Low chances due to tectonics, because the crust that is lost by the movement of tectonic plates usually is the crust that is below the sea. The surface that covers continents might move or go up due tectonics, but almost never disappear. The worst case would be that the remnats are buried in a mountain like the Tibet or the Alps, but never below the sea.

Yes by other force of nature. Like any other fossil, the remnants of your civilization might be convered by sediments and later on turn into stone or leave their mark in the stone.

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Your question is quite close my question - What will remain from an eco-friendly civilization after 10,000 years?.

Based on it's answers, i think your civilization could left Moon base remains and satellites on high orbits (c) - https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/15002/2763.

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