Humans Force Earth into New Geologic Epoch

[Narz]

Yahoo News"]

Humans Force Earth into New Geologic Epoch

Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com Sun Jan 27, 1:46 PM ET

Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun.

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:
Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns. Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature. Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns. Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

The idea, first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, has gained steam with two new scientific papers that call for official recognition of the shift.

Vivid metaphor

In the February issue of the journal GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America, Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams of the University of Leicester and colleagues at the Geological Society of London argue that industrialization has wrought changes that usher in a new epoch.

Scientists of the future will have no trouble deciding if the proposal was timely. All they'll need to do is dig into the planet and examine its stratigraphic layers, which reveal a chronology of the changing conditions that existed as each layer is created. Layers can reflect volcanic upheaval, ice ages or mass extinctions.

"Sufficient evidence has emerged of stratigraphically significant change (both elapsed and imminent) for recognition of the Anthropocene — currently a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change — as a new geological epoch to be considered for formalization by international discussion," Zalasiewicz's team writes.

The paper calls on the International Commission on Stratigraphy to officially mark the shift.

In a separate paper last month in the journal Soil Science, researchers focused on soil infertility alone as a reason to dub this the Anthropocene Age. (The term "age" is sometimes used interchangeably with "epoch" or to indicate a transition period between epochs.)

As an example, they said, agriculture in Africa "has so degraded regional soil fertility that the economic development of whole nations will be diminished without drastic improvements of soil management."

"With more than half of all soils on Earth now being cultivated for food crops, grazed, or periodically logged for wood, how to sustain Earth’s soils is becoming a major scientific and policy issue," said Duke University soil scientist Daniel Richter.

Richter's work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Origin of a term

Earth's 4.5-billion-year history is divided into major eras, then periods and finally epochs. The Holocene Epoch began after the last Ice Age.

As early as the late 1800s scientists were writing about man's wholesale impact on the planet and the possibility of an "anthropozoic era" having begun, according to Crutzen, who is credited with coining the term Anthropocene (anthropo = human; cene = new) back in 2000. That year, Crutzen and a colleague wrote in the scientific newsletter International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme about some of the dramatic changes:

"Urbanization has ... increased tenfold in the past century. In a few generations mankind is exhausting the fossil fuels that were generated over several hundred million years."

Up to half of Earth's land has been transformed by human activity, wrote Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer of the University of Michigan. They also noted the dramatic increase in greenhouse gases and other chemicals and pollutants humans have introduced into global ecosystems.

The epochal idea has merit, according to geologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University.

"In land, water, air, ice, and ecosystems, the human impact is clear, large, and growing,"Alley told ScienceNow, an online publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "A geologist from the far distant future almost surely would draw a new line, and begin using a new name, where and when our impacts show up."

I think it's high time we stop denying our own powers.

Makes me think of the quote "“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." and then of the one "With great power comes great responsibility".

People here often accusing of being a negative Nancy but I never said we couldn't (let alone shouldn't use our powers for good). I believe almost every problem humans have created we can also create it's opposite. Check out this video for example on the opposite of desertification.

I do believe we may have past a tipping point of sorts and that a large amount of catastrophic human suffering may be inevitable but we should try the best we can to avert this & prioritize. Bush's "stimulus package" is like taking some coke to distract from that fact that you've been shot in the calf. When you come down you'll have the same problem as before but now the leg may have to be amputated. We are going to have to restructure our whole way of life, the sooner the better.

Anyway, thought this news item was interesting.

 

[Babbler]

Babbler strikes again!

It should be noted it is only a proposal.

 

[Narz]

Opps, threads should be merged I guess.

 

[GenMarshall]

It's only a proposal

 

[JerichoHill]

Yes, and that Man has been influencing the environment for alot longer than 2000 years. Man did kill off the MegaFauna, ya know, like 10000 years ago

 

[Narz]

Yes, and that Man has been influencing the environment for alot longer than 2000 years. Man did kill off the MegaFauna, ya know, like 10000 years ago

It's about the rate we're doing it. These days we're killing off as many species in every year as our forebearers did in 1000. Not to mention all the other effects we're having on the ecosystem as a whole.

Comparing man today to man 10K years ago is really grasping. There such denial that business as usual is destructive.

 

[MobBoss]

Sounds to me like someone watched "The Core" and didnt realize they were watching a movie....

 

[skadistic]

It's about the rate we're doing it. These days we're killing off as many species in every year as our forebearers did in 1000. Not to mention all the other effects we're having on the ecosystem as a whole.

Thats because they did know how tasty things were.

 

[nivi]

Obama says Change is good, and I agree, remember the oxygen catastrophe?

 

[Narz]

Sounds to me like someone watched "The Core" and didnt realize they were watching a movie....

A keen insight into the process of how scientists do their work.

Thats because they did know how tasty things were.

Huh?