Invasive species introduced to new areas by humans can also be markers, scientists say. San Francisco Bay has been transformed by the inadvertent introduction of alien species into the ballast water of ships arriving in San Francisco from Asia. “There was a point where his 98% of the mass of all animal species in the bay were actually invasive,” Waters said. Pollen from introduced plant species, such as trees used in commercial forestry, can also record changes.
Contamination with chemicals and metals can also be found in the sediment, Turner says. After the war, the entire cocktail of industrial chemicals exploded. ” Whether the chemicals persist in the environment long enough to be markers of the Anthropocene remains to be determined.
The 12 potential locations of the New Age-defining sites all show some markers, but they are very diverse. We are trying to prove to people that this is not a local thing, but something that can be found and correlated across different environments.
“They all show this dramatic Anthropocene transformation very well. , including some of the polar ice sites, Turner said.
All have pros and cons. The 32-meter-long Palmer Ice Core on the Antarctic Peninsula is the longest on record from the Anthropocene, but its remote location often leaves some marker traces hazy. . With the onset of the Anthropocene, Baltic sediments change from pale to black. This is caused by pollution-fueled algal blooms sucking all the oxygen out of the water. However, there is no annual stratification in the sediments. Archaeological sites in central Vienna show a 200-year record of him dated by artifacts, but there are gaps in the record due to redevelopment.
Site selection, and therefore the official time and place of the Anthropocene Dawn, is in the hands of the 23 voting members of the AWG. Ratified by the Commission on Stratigraphy and finally by the International Geoscience Union. There is also a deadline, the AWG’s mandate will expire at the 2024 International Geological Conference in South Korea. “I’ve been told I have to get this done by then,” Waters said.
Harvard professor and non-voting AWG member Naomi Oreskes said: It used to be, but not now. The evidence compiled by the AWG shows beyond doubt that human footprints are now in rocks and sediments. The Anthropocene is primarily a scientific concept, but it also highlights the cultural, political, and economic implications of our actions. ”
Co-authored by Mark Maslin of UCL human planet With Simon Lewis, “I think the Anthropocene is an important philosophical term because it allows us to think about what kind of influence we have and what kind of influence we want to have in the future. “
Maslin and Lewis have previously proposed 1610 as the beginning of the Anthropocene, which represented the enormous and deadly impact of European settlers on the Americas and, by extension, the world. But Maslin said agreeing on a definition is more important than where the definition is.
“So far we talk about climate change, the biodiversity crisis, the pollution crisis, etc. as separate things,” he said. “The key concept of the Anthropocene is to put all this together and say that humans are having a profound impact on the planet. We are a new geological superpower. Its holistic approach You can say, ‘What do we do about it?'”
