The College of Southampton has an announcement. Slashdot reader pyroclast shared this report from ScienceDaily:
At the moment a world staff of researchers has chosen the placement which finest represents the beginnings of what might be a brand new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Working Group have put ahead Crawford Lake, in Canada, as a International Boundary Stratotype Part and Level (GSSP) for the Anthropocene.
A GSSP is an internationally agreed-upon reference level to indicate the beginning of a brand new geological interval or epoch in layers of rock which have constructed up via the ages. It has been proposed by some geologists that we at the moment are dwelling within the Anthropocene — a brand new geological epoch by which human exercise has change into the dominant affect on the world’s local weather and surroundings. The idea has vital implications for the way we contemplate our affect on the planet. However there may be disagreement within the scientific neighborhood about when the Anthropocene started, how it’s evidenced and whether or not human affect has been substantial sufficient to represent a brand new geological age, which often span thousands and thousands of years. To assist reply these questions, the Worldwide Fee on Stratigraphy (ICS) arrange the Anthropocene Working Group.
“The sediments discovered on the backside of Crawford Lake present an beautiful report of latest environmental change over the past millennia,” says Dr Simon Turner, Secretary of the Anthropocene Working Group from UCL. “Seasonal adjustments in water chemistry and ecology have created annual layers that may be sampled for a number of markers of historic human exercise. It’s this means to exactly report and retailer this info as a geological archive that may be matched to historic international environmental adjustments which make websites equivalent to Crawford Lake so necessary….”
Professor Andrew Cundy, Chair in Environmental Radiochemistry on the College of Southampton and member of the Anthropocene Working Group, explains: “The presence of plutonium offers us a stark indicator of when humanity grew to become such a dominant power that it might depart a singular international ‘fingerprint’ on our planet. In nature, plutonium is just current in hint quantities. However within the early-Nineteen Fifties, when the primary hydrogen bomb checks happened, we see an unprecedented improve after which spike within the ranges of plutonium in core samples from around the globe. We then see a decline in plutonium from the mid-Nineteen Sixties onwards when the Nuclear Take a look at-Ban Treaty got here into impact.”
Different geological indicators of human exercise embody excessive ranges of ash from coal-fired energy stations, excessive concentrations of heavy metals, equivalent to lead, and the presence of plastic fibres and fragments. These coincide with ‘The Nice Acceleration’ — a dramatic surge throughout a variety of human exercise, from transportation to vitality use, beginning within the mid-Twentieth century and persevering with at present.
“Proof from the websites will now be introduced to the Worldwide Fee on Stratigraphy, which can resolve subsequent 12 months whether or not to ratify the Anthropocene as a brand new geological epoch.”
