15 years ago, a working group was set up by the international geological community.
They have worked on the question of whether we are entering a new geological age. Have we reached the Anthropocene – the age of man?
Yes, thought the working group and finally presented a proposal to the Subcommission for Quaternary Stratigraphy.
Now the work seems to be coming to an abrupt end. The proposal was voted down at first instance.
Many changes
Earth’s history is divided into eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages.
Geology tells the story of the past. Changes in the geological layers show when the earth changed and a new time period began.
The geologists of the future will possibly see that there was a change on the earth in the time we live in now.
The number of humans and domestic animals on earth has increased enormously, while the number of wild animals has decreased drastically. The CO2 content in the atmosphere has risen rapidly, and the ocean has become more acidic.
Areas have been changed, for example from forest to fields. Humans now move ten times more soil masses annually than the natural processes, according to an article in The Conversation.
Alien species have spread. Plastic and pollution can be seen in soil layers and at the bottom of seas and water.
Traces in lake
The Working Group on the Anthropocene recommended that a new era should be created. They believe that the era should start in 1950.
It coincides with The Great Acceleration, when the arrows for consumption, transport, land use, energy use and much else are pointing steeply upwards.
The working group had also worked its way to a place that could define the Anthropocene as a new era: Crawford Lake in Canada.
Radioactive fallout and traces of fossil fuel burning were among the markers of human activity stored at the bottom.
The researchers also mapped several other proposals that contained markers for our time in the form of everything from microplastics to pesticides, alien species, increased use of fertilizers and climate change.
Henrik Svensen, professor of geology at the University of Oslo, understands well that they ended up with a lake as the best candidate.
– In some lakes there are layers in the bottom mud that are deposited every spring and summer. This means that every single year is archived in the lake sediments. Then you can measure very precisely which changes have taken place and when, both in the area immediately around the lake and in the atmosphere.
Downvoted
The final proposal has now been submitted to a panel of geologists in the Subcommission for Quaternary Stratigraphy.
They were not convinced.
12 out of 18 participants voted against. Thus, the proposal for a new era is dead. The melder The New York Timeswho have seen the internal announcement of the voting results.
Also Science has confirmed it.
If the proposal had been approved, it would have gone further and finally ended up with the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), where it would eventually have been officially ratified.
However, the proposal was stopped in the first instance.
We will thus continue to live in the Holocene epoch, at least for the time being. The Holocene has lasted since the end of the last Ice Age, 11,700 years ago.
Disagreement about the vote
– The decision is final, says geologist Philip Gibbard for Science.
He is on the panel and is secretary-general of the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
– There are no outstanding problems to be solved. The case is closed.
The head of the working group for the Anthropocene disagrees.
– There remain several issues that need to be resolved about the validity of the vote and the circumstances surrounding it, says geologist Colin Waters at the University of Leicester, who has led the working group, to Science.
Jan Zalasiewicz, chair of the Quaternary Stratigraphy Subcommission, and another in the group have called for the vote to be annulled, according to Nature.
It is also possible to put forward proposals again later to introduce the Anthropocene as an epoch.
Surprised
Henrik Svensen, geologist at the University of Oslo, is a little surprised by the decision.
– It is a little surprising that the proposal should be defeated so quickly, at commission level and not higher up at general meeting level, he says.
According to Science, some have felt that the working group has been out in the media too much in advance and submitted the proposal late.
– The working group for the Anthropocene has been the driving force behind establishing the Anthropocene as an epoch. They have been open and published a lot about it. As I understand it, they get some criticism for having, in a way, taken the era in advance, says Svensen.
Different opinions about the start time
According to The New York Times and Science, there are several who disagree that 1950 is the correct starting time for the Anthropocene.
– Human influence goes much deeper into geological time, says Mike Walker, who was on the panel, til The New York Times.
Some believe it is unnatural to set the starting line at 1950, says Henrik Svensen.
– They highlight what is called the early Anthropocene hypothesis, that humans have influenced the earth back to when agriculture started.
– It may very well be that humans have influenced the planet all the way back to then, but that really has nothing to do with the definition of the Anthropocene, because it is about completely different criteria, says Svensen.
If the Anthropocene is to be drawn far back in time, it will be a different story than about the greatly increased influence on the globe in modern times.
– Some may think that the Anthropocene is about the whole of human history and how we have grown up on earth as a natural part of it, and that there is therefore nothing negative associated with it.
Vacancies
Would make the Holocene short-lived
The Anthropocene is already used in research, literature and art. Then as a broader term for the times we live in and the major changes humans are making on the planet.
Dag O. Hessen is professor of biology and head of the Center for Biogeochemistry in the Anthropocene at the University of Oslo.
Hesse does not think it is unexpected that the proposal to establish the Anthropocene as an official geological epoch was voted down.
– Partly because it would make the Holocene extremely short-lived, and partly because it has been difficult to agree on a marker for the Anthropocene – when did it actually begin?
Did it begin with our extinction of megafauna thousands of years ago? With nuclear bombs or with plastic in all ecosystems?
Can be counted as an event
– One can of course argue that this committee of geologists did not take into account all the obvious effects on the environment and ecosystems and our extreme impact on the land surface, the decimation of animal populations and so on, says Hessen.
– But I see that some of the members of the committee believe that the Anthropocene should continue, but is called an event, not an epoch.
An event, or event, in the geological chronology are important events throughout the earth’s history. They are not part of the official geological chronology, according to The New York Times.
Mass extinctions or the oxygen revolution, when photosynthesis led to the production of oxygen on the globe, are examples of events.
– There are many such events throughout geological time, such as meteorite impacts, says Henrik Svensen.
– The Anthropocene can live on as an event. I don’t think geologists will have problems accepting that, he says.
The Age of Man
Dag O. Hessen believes in any case that the term is here to stay.
– I am one of those who have used the term Anthropocene a lot, but have always emphasized that the essential thing is that we must now recognize that we are in the age of man, even if it is not formally a new geological epoch.
– I don’t think we should let the conceptual discussion derail the recognition that the current course cannot continue.