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Welcome to the Age of Anthropocene

August 27th, 2009

Most people who live around the Bay of Fundy have some sense of the geological time scale. We know that during the Triassic period, 208 to 245 million years go, the first dinosaurs appeared on the landscape that now includes the Bay of Fundy and northern Nova Scotia.

From the Hollywood blockbuster, Jurassic Park, we know that the really big dinosaurs ruled the earth 65 to 144 million years ago. The dinosaurs essentially disappeared in the Cretaceous Mass Extinction 65 million years go.

The terms Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous are three of the periods used to mark geological time. A period ends and a new begins following a mass extinction, an ice age or other significant events that change the geological record.

Our current geological period, known as Quaternary began about 1.6 million years ago with global glaciation known as the Pleistocene. Beginning about 10,000 years ago when the glaciers disappeared, we have been living in the Holocene.

There is a growing scientific debate that we may have moved into a new epoch as the subdivisions within geological periods are termed. Within the next few months the international scientific body that discusses such things will be making a determination is we have moved into Anthropocene.

The word for this new epoch is derived from “anthropo” meaning human and “-cene” which is the standard suffix for epoch. The term was proposed in 2000 by Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

A new epoch is recognized when events occur that fundamentally change the geological record. Acceptance of the age of Anthropocene would be scientific validation that the human impacts are so great on a global scale as to change the geological record.

Today, carbon levels in the atmospheric are projected to reach some of the highest levels recorded on earth. This carbon and the resulting impacts are changing the geological record as is written in the rocks.

Virtually all of the large rivers in the world have been altered by range of human activities related to deforestation, industrialization, transportation, hydro development and urbanization. Sedimentary rocks are being formed at record levels due to erosion.

Our build environment is having a profound impact. The residue from concrete and the material itself is expected to show up in the geological record for future scientists, human or otherwise, to ponder.

The rate of species extinction in the world today exceeds the rate at which the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. This too will show up in the geological record.

There is some scientific debate as to when we entered the age of Anthropocene. The general consensus is the beginning of the industrial revolution because that is when human impacts on atmospheric chemistry began.

Remember you heard it here first. Sometime over the next few months it will become official, we have entered a new geological epoch. Welcome to the age of Anthropocene.

Comments are always welcome and can be addressed to stephenhawboldt@annapolisriver.ca