The Anthropocene: Why is the lake a landmark of a new geological era?

sediment deposited in Crawford LakeIt is a small, deep body of water located in the province of Ontario, at Canadaprovided evidence that the Earth has entered a new geological age, and Anthropocenehuman action on the environment. According to the scientists responsible for the study, the change occurred about 70 years ago.

Members of the Anthropocene Working Group (GTA) plan to present the evidence to the international scientific body responsible for naming geological ages in Earth’s history. Scientists have researched at least 12 sites in different countries and cite Lake Crawford as the site that provided particularly compelling evidence for the occurrence of geological markers from the Anthropocene — essentially, the age of humans.

he said in an interview with EstadaoUSP physicist Paulo Artaxo, part of the The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Whether the parts are from this lake or elsewhere is a scientific gem; what is important is to recognize the relevant impact from a social, economic and environmental point of view.”

Geological ages are a subdivision of a planet’s geological time. They represent periods of millions or billions of years, which mark events that are important to the evolution of the Earth.

Plutonium from nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s is a “clear sign” of the transition to the Anthropocene and was accompanied by rampant fossil fuel exploitation and fertilizer consumption, land use changes and biodiversity decline, according to Colin Waters, chair of the GTA and professor at the University of Leicester, UK. United kingdom. The presence of plutonium and other evidence has been found in sediment samples from Lake Crawford.

“The main thing is the process of learning about the human role in climate change, which is reflected in the sediments of this lake, with the increased presence of human-produced pollutants, such as fossil fuels, radioisotopes, and chemical products,” Artaxo said.

“We currently have 70 years of the Anthropocene,” Waters said in an interview with Reuters news agency. “This is long enough because of the speed of change and accuracy (from the guide) To realize that we are in a new phase on Earth and that this must be defined as a new geological era.

The Anthropocene is proposed as a chapter in Earth’s history that reflects the transformation of the planet’s climate and environment as a direct result of human activity. But, until now, there has been no consensus in the scientific community as to when this era began and the existence of evidence to prove it.

“I think it makes sense symbolically to consider the year 1950 as the beginning of a new geological era,” said climatologist Carlos Nobre. “Of course, geological epochs do not begin in a few years, but also human activities have brought about new, unprecedented transformations, such as radioactive particles.”

The Anthropocene has not been officially recognized by a scientific body called the International Commission on Stratigraphy. If the Anthropocene gets official recognition, it will replace the Holocene, which began 11,700 years ago with the end of the last ice age.

“It’s clear that the biology of the planet has changed quite abruptly,” Waters said. “We can’t go back to the Holocene anymore.”

Sediment layers deposited under bodies of water provide records of environmental conditions over time. The scientists took sediment samples from Crawford Lake as well as soil, corals and ice from eleven other sites.

Sediments from Lake Crawford revealed, according to experts, an abrupt (in geological terms) and irreversible change in conditions on Earth. Traces of ash from burning fossil fuels have been found, as well as changes in sediment composition that indicate acid rain, global warming and loss of biodiversity.

“The Crawford sediment record represents changes that make this time geologically different from what happened before,” Francine McCarthy, a professor of earth sciences at Brock University in Canada, told Reuters in an interview.

Some scholars argue, however, that the Anthropocene would have begun around the time of the Industrial Revolution—between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century.