Humanity is now a ‘geological superpower’ and declaring a new epoch is critical to tackling its impact, scientists say
xactly where and when did the Anthropocene begin? Scientists are attempting to answer this epochal question in the coming months by choosing a place and time to represent the moment when humanity became a “geological superpower”, overwhelming the natural processes that have governed Earth for billions of years.
They could decide the start is marked with a bang, thanks to the plutonium isotopes rapidly blasted around the planet by the hydrogen bomb tests that began in late 1952, or with a shower of soot particles from the surge in fossil-fuel power plants after the second world war. Or they may choose the postwar explosion in artificial fertiliser use and its profound impact on the Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle. Microplastics, chicken bones and pesticide residues may also be among the eclectic signs used to bolster the definition of the Anthropocene. Possible other signs include lake beds in the US and China, Australian corals, a Polish peat bog, the black sediments beneath the Baltic Sea and even the human debris accumulated under Vienna.
An international team of almost 40 scientists, who have been commissioned by the official guardians of the geological timescale, must select a place where layered deposits show the clear transition from the previous age to the new one. The team has come up with a shortlist of 12 sites that have now begun a series of votes – but there can be only one winner.
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