Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 CE initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch

Abstract

Growth in fundamental drivers—energy use, economic productivity and population—can provide quantitative indications of the proposed boundary between the Holocene Epoch and the Anthropocene. Human energy expenditure in the Anthropocene, ~22 zetajoules (ZJ), exceeds that across the prior 11,700 years of the Holocene (~14.6 ZJ), largely through combustion of fossil fuels. The global warming effect during the Anthropocene is more than an order of magnitude greater still. Global human population, their productivity and energy consumption, and most changes impacting the global environment, are highly correlated. This extraordinary outburst of consumption and productivity demonstrates how the Earth System has departed from its Holocene state since ~1950 CE, forcing abrupt physical, chemical and biological changes to the Earth’s stratigraphic record that can be used to justify the proposal for naming a new epoch—the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene: Comparing Its Meaning in Geology (Chronostratigraphy) with Conceptual Approaches Arising in Other Disciplines

“…Rather, it is a widely recognizable marker that closely coincides (e.g., fig. 1 of Bancone et al, 2020) with the sharp and pronounced difference in trajectory of many key Earth System parameters that provided the initial impetus for the chronostratigraphic (geological) Anthropocene (quantified by Syvitski et al, 2020), and that remains the justification accepted by the AWG. This is seen prominently in the steep rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Figure 2), which clearly depart from the Holocene trend of overall stability.…”

“…And, it allows consistent comparison of rates of change of different Earth processes with those of other time intervals, not least quantitatively (e.g. Syvitski et al, 2020) For instance, in the ~70 years of the chronostratigraphic Anthropocene up to 2015, the amount of Earth surface rock and sediment moved and reshaped by human mineral/rock extraction and construction activities was some 6.4 trillion tonnes, 30-fold larger than during the previous 70 years (Cooper et al, 2018). This is some seven times greater than the mass of sediment carried by the Earth's rivers to the ocean, and about two orders of magnitude greater than the total mass of magma erupted by the world's volcanoes (http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/eruption-rates) over that time.…”

“…5 and Figure 2 herein). This largely reflects the striking increase in fossil fuel consumption in the chronostratigraphic Anthropocene, approaching 90% of all coal, oil and gas used to date: in that brief interval, the total human-appropriated energy use of all kinds exceeded that in all previous human history (Syvitski et al, 2020).…”

“…The phenomena of the Anthropocene are important per se, irrespective of their cause. One may consider just a few of these (see C. N. Waters et al, 2016;Syvitski et al, 2020): (1) the rapid postindustrial increase in atmospheric CO 2 by over a third ( Figure 2); (2) the doubling of the surface N and P cycles; (3) the more than order-of-magnitude increases in the diversity of mineral-like substances and in terrestrial erosion/sedimentation rates; and (4) the marked accelerations in introduced non-native species (Seebens et al, 2017(Seebens et al, , 2018 and extinction rates (Ceballos et al, 2015). If these phenomena were due to some drastic natural forcing, such as a bolide impact, they would equally well provide justification for a distinctive new geological epoch.…”

A revised definition for copal and its significance for palaeontological and Anthropocene biodiversity-loss studies

“…However, it remains an unofficial geological unit. Neither the ICS nor the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) have officially approved the Anthropocene as a recognized subdivision of geologic time and how it should be demarcated remains a matter of discussion [81][82][83][84] . On this basis, Defaunation resin was produced within the Anthropocene in a different time relative to the remainder of the Holocene.…”