ANTHROPOCENE AS EARTH’S NEW EPOCH

 

For: preliminary & Mains
Topic covers: Anthropocene Epoch, Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point, Holocene Epoch, Geological time scale of Earth

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News Flash

Rising global temperatures, sea levels, depleting ozone layer and acidifying oceans are the result of human activity that has “distinctively” altered our planet.

Now, a team of scientists have voted to declare “Anthropocene” as a new chapter in the Earth’s geological history.

 

Anthropocene as Earth’s new Epoch

• Coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to denote the present geological time interval, Anthropocene has been used to describe humanity’s large impact on the environment, but the scientific community has in the past years intensely debated the idea to formally define it as a geological unit within the Geological Time Scale.
• Recently, 29-member of Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), voted in favour of starting the new epoch.
• The result builds on an informal vote taken at the 2016 International Geological Congress in Cape Town, and lays the groundwork for a formal proposal by 2021 to the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
• The move signals the end of the Holocene epoch, which began 12,000 to 11,600 years ago.
• The International Union of Geological Sciences needs to ratify the AWG formal proposal, before the new epoch can formally be recognised.

 

Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP)

To show a clear transition from the Holocene, the scientists plan to identify a definitive geologic marker or ‘golden spike’, and would be technically called a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP).

For this, the group will search for the marker from around the globe, including a cave in northern Italy, corals in the Great Barrier Reef and a lake in China.

 

Demonstration of a new epoch

To demonstrate a sedimentary record representing the start of the epoch, the team is likely to choose the radionuclides  that came from atomic-bomb detonations from 1945 until the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

The stratigraphic evidence overwhelmingly indicates a time-transgressive Anthropocene with multiple beginnings rather than a single moment of origin.

Declaring a new epoch on the basis of the radionuclide signal alone, impedes rather than facilitates scientific understanding of human involvement in Earth system change.

 

Holocene Epoch

The Holocene Epoch is the current period of geologic time. It is accepted by the International Commission on Stratigraphy that the Holocene started approximately 11,650 cal years before present.

The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch.

The Holocene has seen the growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition toward urban living in the present.

 

Geological time scale of Earth

The geologic time scale is a system of chronological dating that relates geological strata to time. It is used by geologists, paleontologists, and other Earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships of events that have occurred during Earth’s history.

For further understanding click on Geologic Time Scale

 

Source: Down to Earth

 

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