A new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, has begun, scientists say

This is kinda sad.....Like really... Sometimes i kinda feel bad for being a human. So here's the deal:



The mushroom cloud of the first test of a hydrogen bomb "Ivy Mike" looms over the Pacific Ocean in 1952. Scientists propose that a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, began in 1950, marked in rocks and sediments by the fallout from nuclear tests during the 1950s and 1960s

Humans have left mark in rock record like the meteor that ended Late Cretaceous, wiped out dinosaurs We're living through one of the most extraordinary events in Earth's history — the start of a new geological epoch, an international group of scientists says.

Welcome to the Anthropocene, everyone.

Geological epochs are long periods of time — typically lasting around two million years — separated by major, global changes to the planet, such as the massive exploding meteor that ended the Late Cretaceous and wiped out the dinosaurs.

'They've left a permanent record in our sediments and our soils and our glacial ice that's going to be detectable for millennia.'
- Colin Waters, Anthropocene Working Group
Modern humans arose during the Pleistocene epoch, and since the sudden warming that ended the last ice age about 12,000 years ago, we had been living in the Holocene epoch.

But modern human technology has had such a profound effect on our planet that we're now in a new epoch that started during the mid-20th century — the Anthropocene, argues an international group of researchers in a new paper published today in the journal Science.

So yeah, humans are chancing Earth on a bigger scale than before. So far we are the eppinacle of evolution bred by tMother nature:

The boundary between two epochs is visible to geologists as some kind of "marker" between layers of rock, soil or ice that are deposited all over the Earth over time. For example, the Late Cretaceous-ending meteor left a distinct layer of iridium.

In the case of the Anthropocene, scientists note that humans have produced unusual materials like radioactive fallout from nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s."They've left a permanent record in our sediments and our soils and our glacial ice that's going to be detectable for millennia," said Colin Waters, a geologist with the British Geological Survey and secretary of the Anthropocene Working Group, whose members authored the new report.

"Geologists in millions of years time will look back at and say, 'Something quite incredible happened at this time' and be quite precise about when it happened."

What do you think about this?

Sauce for moar

Just another stripe in the soil.
Quite a stretch to place an extinction level asteroid impact on the same level as a nuke.

Cheeky feckers intimating that humans et al are responsible.
When the atomic bomb tests were going off left right and centre and in the air, most of the plebs were against it all. Trouble is the plebs were trampled on by the mad politicians and the mad military. God knows what damage they did to the planet in the blink of an eye. What a shower of bastards they were...probably still are.

"Geologists in millions of years time will look back at and say, 'Something quite incredible happened at this time' and be quite precise about when it happened."

If there's anyone left by then
Smh

a reply to: Frocharocha

Yup... its hard to believe that all those tests havent had some kinda effect on the planet!

a reply to: Frocharocha

Just for sake of clarity, this so far is conceptual and informal. A group pf scientists are conducting a study to determine whether we have entered a new epoch. The article points that out.

The study, co-authored by 24 members of the Anthropocene Working Group, shows that humans have changed the Earth system sufficiently to produce a range of signals in sediments and ice, and these are sufficiently distinctive to justify recognition of an Anthropocene Epoch in the Geological Time Scale. In 2016 the Anthropocene Working Group will gather more evidence on the Anthropocene, which will help inform recommendations on whether this new time unit should be formalized and, if so, how it might be defined and characterized.

A number of UK members of the group have contributed to this study, Colin Waters (lead author and Secretary of the group) and Michael Ellis, both from the British Geological Survey, Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams and Matt Edgeworth from Leicester University and Colin Summerhayes from Cambridge University have provided significant input to this study and maintain the UK's strong involvement in research into the Anthropocene concept.

OP's link.

I always looked to the rise of industry from the burning of coal in Europe and petroleum in the USA. The industrial revolutions accelerated things quite a bit. The nuclear age seems to have taken that rate of acceleration to yet a higher level.

Did anyone doubt that humans are advanced enough to do this. We are very good at creating things.

a reply to: Frocharocha

I guess what old Marcus Aurelius said about "what we do in life echoes in eternity" now applies to us as a species as well as individuals.

Sad really that the first true Mark man has made on our Earth that will probably be around for the next billion or so years was created via an atomic weapon.

What I find interesting is how with ice cores we can tell when people on this planet started to significantly pollute the atmosphere, and it started thousands of years ago, with the production of copper and other metals.
news.sciencemag.org...

originally posted by: gosseyn
What I find interesting is how with ice cores we can tell when people on this planet started to significantly pollute the atmosphere, and it started thousands of years ago, with the production of copper and other metals.
news.sciencemag.org...

That's right, not just cores, signs all over the world, the Romans, the Greeks, soot in cave dwellings etc. The retrospect is that there wasn't industrialism enough globally, that nature couldn't deal with it, so it's the industrial revolution that takes the can for it...retrospectively of course. Though, in the 1950's many great acts were enshrined...(I'm waxing lyrical now) amongst them the US clean water act, though I think anybody in Nevada or Utah today might think it's a bit of a joke round those parts, some other things were slow to take off. Speaking about Nevada, that's the location of the movies, "The Conqueror" and, "The Searchers" both starring John Wayne, and made around the same time. 91 out of 220 cast members of the, "Conqueror" were diagnosed with cancers at some time later, as was cast members of the "Searchers" while some shots in the studios had tons of contaminated soil from Nevada shipped in for 'authenticity' by Howard Hughes.
In the UK the clean air act, especially for the cities did start to make a difference, and the UK is getting cleaner year by year on, dramatically so in London.
So we have had 60 odd years since the beginnings of the,"many great acts" so you might expect some changes for the better now, wouldn't you? Nah! what we are having is Co2 being rammed down our throats, that poor little gas that takes it's time coming back down to Earth, while seriously prolific greenhouse gas water vapour gets a pass, even while our airy 'o planes are buzzing about making even more water vapour up there than there should be. Amazing stuff

a reply to: Frocharocha

These "scientists" sound more and more like dooms day jesus cults.