Anthropocene (~200 ybp - 0 ybp) Epoch Proposed

Welcome to the anthropocene
our effect on the world is so great some distinguished geologists say a new era should be named for us

RANDY BOSWELL
Canwest News Service

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The world of geology is about to be rocked by a controversial bid to reclassify the present era in planetary history as one in which human activities - not natural processes - are the definitive force shaping the top layer of the Earth.

It will come as a surprise to most nonexperts, but just as we are living in the 21st century according to the calendar, we are creatures of what's called the Holocene in geological time.

And it's been that way, according to scientists, for about 11,700 years - a discernible boundary in the Earth's history that is marked, among other ways, by evidence of meltwater lakes and gravel ridges left across the Canadian landscape when the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age.

But now, a distinguished group of British geologists has proposed that the Holocene is over and that we have entered a new geological era - the Anthropocene - in which humans have left such a distinctive footprint on the Earth's surface through carbon pollution, nuclear fallout, urbanization and other traces of our technological power that it should be officially recognized by international scientific bodies as "a formal epoch." "Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, Earth has endured changes sufficient to leave a global stratigraphic signature distinct from that of the Holocene ... encompassing novel biotic, sedimentary and geochemical change," the scientists state in February's cover story of GSA Today, a flagship publication of the Geological Society of America.

The scientists insist they are not simply performing a political stunt to bolster arguments for the rapid reduction in greenhouse gases to avert cataclysmic climate change.

Mark Williams, a University of Leicester paleobiologist and co-author of the article, said the Anthropocene could be pegged as beginning with the Industrial Revolution about 200 years ago, "when human industrial processes started to transform the planet on a colossal scale." He said distinctive increases in carbon dioxide deposits in Arctic and Antarctic ice cores or traces of radioactivity from nuclear weapons tests beginning in the mid-20th century - and which can be found all over the world - could be used to peg the beginning of the Anthropocene.

These "chemical signals" at a specific depth in the Earth's upper crust are unique to the modern era, he said.

Altering official categories of Earth history is no small matter. Debates are still raging in geological circles over when, precisely, the Holocene began.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

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VRWCAgent said:

Arwon, did you ever ask that at the right time!! The History Channel is giving an encore showing of "Life After People" tonight. It begins at 7pm CST, so if you can somehow get a signal over in Spain, all your questions will be answered.

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CivGeneral said:

So this period lumps ALL of the human ages into this Epoch. What would be 0ybp - present be (Provided that the zero point is at 1950 per say in wikipedia's article on "ybp")

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Arwon said:

I'm really curious to know what would be left if we disappeared tomorrow. How long would it take the earth to recover from our legacy (not just present changes like deforestation and messing up the ocean, but also including the decay and destruction of chemical warfare factories and nuclear weapons and other such things) and would it, in fact, leave a discernable trace in the geological record?

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Babbler said:

A guess of what an alien geologist would find: depleted fossil fuels and resource minerals, anomalous spikes in paleoclimate indicators, sea floor wreckage, etc.

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Arwon said:

I'm really curious to know what would be left if we disappeared tomorrow. How long would it take the earth to recover from our legacy (not just present changes like deforestation and messing up the ocean, but also including the decay and destruction of chemical warfare factories and nuclear weapons and other such things) and would it, in fact, leave a discernable trace in the geological record?

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