Scientists said Tuesday that sediments at Crawford Lake in Canada provide clues to the beginning of the Anthropocene.
The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) said layered sediments at the bottom of the lake in Canada’s Ontario province showed the world had entered a new epoch marked by the destabilizing impact of human activities on the environment.
They selected the lake from a shortlist of 12 potential sites where the evidence of impacts could best be measured and observed.
The group said the bottom of the lake contained microplastics, residue from burnt oil and coal, and nuclear bomb debris.
Scientists said the sediment exhibits a “golden spike” that signifies a sudden and irreversible change in Earth conditions.
Scientists said the sediment, which contains microplastics and other forms of debris, shows a change in Earth conditions. Credit: Peter Power/AFP/Getty Images
“The data show a clear shift since the mid-20th century, taking the Earth system beyond normal Holocene boundaries,” team member Andy Cundy, a professor at the University of Southampton, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). ) news agency, referring to the epoch that began at the end of the last Ice Age 11,700 years ago.
“The sediment found at the bottom of Crawford Lake provides an excellent record of recent environmental changes over the past millennia,” said Simon Turner, Chair of the AWG and Professor at University College London.
“It’s this ability to precisely record this information and store it as a geological archive that can be correlated to historical global environmental changes.”
Anthropocene has not yet been recognized by the international commission
Working group members plan to present the results to the International Commission on Stratigraphy for official recognition of the Anthropocene epoch.
There has been disagreement within the scientific community as to when this period began, or if it began, and what evidence is needed to support this.
“We are currently 70 years into the Anthropocene,” said AWG Chair Colin Waters. “Due to the speed and precision of change, it has taken long enough to recognize that we have entered this new state of the earth and that it should be defined by a new geological epoch.”
“Obviously, the biology of the planet has changed abruptly,” Waters said. “We cannot go back to a Holocene state now.”
Holocene derives from the ancient Greek words for “whole” and “new,” the name being chosen to denote the greatly changed properties of the Earth after the end of the last Ice Age. Anthropocene, in turn, is derived from the Greek and means “human” and “new”.
sdi/msh (AFP, Portal, AP)