The physical space of the MSK Library is permanently closed to visitors as of Friday, May 17, 2024. Please visit this guide for more information.
The physical space of the MSK Library is permanently closed to visitors as of Friday, May 17, 2024. Please visit this guide for more information.
The term "anthropocene", is a combination of the Ancient Greek words: anthropos (meaning human) and kainos (meaning new or recent). Although the term had been described by scientists for decades, it wasn't until the year 2000, that Paul J. Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist, is credited with popularizing the term specifically to describe the human-behaviors that initiated an ecological shift characteristic of a new epoch.
On July 11, 2023, after 14 years of debate, the Anthropocene Working Group announced the last of their findings -- the "golden spike".
Crawford Lake (Milton, Ontario)
The dawn of a new geological epoch, the proof that humans have caused profound change to the planet, is found in the contaminated soil at the bottom of a quiet, pristine lake outside of Toronto. Year after year, particles settled onto the lake and drifted to its bottom, forming sediment layers that recorded environmental conditions much as tree rings do. Among the embedded contaminants are specks of fly ash— remnants from burning fossil fuels — and traces of radioactive plutonium from atmospheric nuclear bomb testing.
Three geological organizations must approve the choice for it to become the official marker.
In 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London considered a proposal to make the Anthropocene a formal unit of geological epoch divisions; a majority of the commission decided the proposal had merit and should be examined further. Independent working groups of scientists from various geological societies thus set out to determine if and when the Anthropocene would be a new geological epoch.
The new epoch had no agreed-upon start date, with different scientists and teams proposing different events, ranging from the Neolithic Revolution around 12,000 years ago, to the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the steam engine in 1780, to the Trinity Test (first detonation of a nuclear weopon) on July 16, 1945.
A January 2016 report on the climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores suggested the era since the mid-20th century should be recognised as a geological epoch distinct from the Holocene. The Anthropocene Working Group met in Oslo in April 2016 to consolidate evidence supporting the argument for the Anthropocene as a true geologic epoch. Evidence was evaluated and the group voted to recommend "Anthropocene" as the new geological epoch in August 2016.
In April 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) announced that they would vote on a formal proposal to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, to continue the process started at the 2016 meeting. In May 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) voted on the 2016 formal proposal to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, where they would make an official proposal by 2021. The AWG also voted in favor of a starting date in the mid 20th century.
The AWG identified twelve candidate sites for a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point. One would be recommended as the Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) to define the base of the Anthropocene as a series (epoch) within the Geological Time Scale. Markers identifying this shift include radioactive isotopes, microplastics, heavy metals, and microfossils in marine, estuary, and lake settings.
Climate change in a broader sense can also include the long-term changes to Earth's climate. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and greenhouse periods.
Within these major climatic periods, the earth fluctuates between glacial (interval of time within an Ice Age marked by colder temperatures) and interglacial (interval of warmer global temperatures between ice ages) periods, where the size and the distribution of continental ice sheets fluctuate dramatically. This fluctuation of the ice sheets results in changes in regional climatic conditions that affect the range and the distribution of many terrestrial and oceanic species.
| Geochronologic unit (time) | Chronostratigraphic unit (strata) | Time span | Number of Defined Units | Current Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eon | Eonothem | Several hundred millions of years | 4 | Phanerozoic |
| Era | Erathem | Tens to hundreds of millions of years | 10 | Cenozoic |
| Period | System | Millions of years to tens of millions of years | 22 | Quaternary |
| Epoch | Series | Hundreds of thousands of years to tens of millions of years | 38 | Anthropocene |
| Subepoch | Subseries | Thousands of years to millions of years | 11 | Subatlantic |
| Age | Stage | Thousands of years to millions of years | 96 | Meghalayan |