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Scientists vote to recognize Anthropocene as Earth’s new epoch
Why in news?
- Scientists have voted to declare “Anthropocene” as a new chapter in the Earth’s geological history.
- Rising global temperatures, sea levels, depleting ozone layer and acidifying oceans are the result of human activity that has distinctively altered our planet.
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- About Anthropocene epoch:(1) It was coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to denote the present geological time interval.(2) Anthropocene has been used to describe humanity’s large impact on the environment.(3) Scientific community has in the past years intensely debated the idea to formally define it as a geological unit within the Geological Time Scale.
- How this concept has been developed?(1) Recently 29 of the 34-member Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), voted in favor of starting the new epoch.(2) The Anthropocene works as a geological unit of time, process and strata and is distinguishable distinctive.(3) The move signals the end of the Holocene epoch, which began 12,000 to 11,600 years ago.
- Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP):(1) To show a clear transition from the Holocene, the scientists plan to identify a definitive geologic marker or ‘golden spike’, and would be technically called GSSP.(2) For this, the group will search for the marker from around the globe, including a cave in northern Italy, corals in the Great Barrier Reef and a lake in China.(3) To demonstrate a sedimentary record representing the start of the epoch, the team is likely to choose the radionuclides that came from atomic-bomb detonations from 1945 until the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963
- Opinions against this move:(1) Four members of the AWG voted against the idea of designating the Anthropocene as a new epoch.(2) The stratigraphic evidence overwhelmingly indicates a time-transgressive Anthropocene with multiple beginnings rather than a single moment of origin.(3) Declaring a new epoch on the basis of the radionuclide signal alone, impedes rather than facilitates scientific understanding of human involvement in Earth system change.
Source
Down to Earth