Anthropocene Patterns in Stratigraphy as a Perspective on Human Success

Abstract

The human species has deeply impacted the geology of our planet, our current environmental conditions now being very different from the stable interglacial conditions of the Holocene Epoch, in which human civilization flowered. Hence, a new epoch has been proposed, the Anthropocene, starting in tandem with the mid-20th-century Great Acceleration of population, industrialization, and globalization. One of the clearest measures of human impact on our planet is energy use, as reflected by rapidly increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Through this lens, the large-scale historical patterns of human activity show not gradual change but sudden and massive linked changes to geology and ecosystems. This has been driven by growth of the technosphere, a quasi-autonomous and emergent sphere of human-driven processes that interacts with the other Earth spheres. Consequences include the rapid accumulation of unrecycled waste, increasingly threatening the success of this development and hence of humans too.

The shape of Anthropocene: The early contribution of the water sciences

“…First, the GSA Today article “Are we now living in the Anthropocene?” saw light in February 2008 (Zalasiewicz et al, 2008b). Then, the Anthropocene was discussed in thematic panels during the 2008 December meeting of the American Geophysical Union (Steffen et al, 2008; Williams et al, 2008; Zalasiewicz et al, 2008a). Lastly, an Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) began its operations in the summer of 2009 as part of the Subcommission of Quaternary Stratigraphy (AWG, 2009).…”