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Scientists suggest new geological epoch: ours Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com January 30, 2008
The contents of each geological strata contain clues about the time that created it, and according to the paper since 1800 "the global environmental effects of increased human population and economic development" has changed geological strata considerably enough to warrant the distinction of a new epoch. "From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the present day," the paper explains, "global human population has climbed rapidly from under a billion to its current 6.5 billion […]. The exploitation of coal, oil, and gas in particular has enabled planet-wide industrialization, construction, and mass transport, the ensuing changes encompassing a wide variety of phenomena." The paper, published by the Geological Society of America, discusses four different areas in which these changes are evident. The first is changes in physical sedimentation, including erosion due to deforestation, agriculture, construction, and damming rivers.
Finally, oceans are also undergoing significant changes. Sea levels have already risen due to melting ice and thermal expansion of the water, but it has yet to be seen how far they will go. "Changes may be as large as a 10—30 meter sea-level rise per 1 °C temperature rise" asserts the paper. In addition, surface sea water is experiencing a rise in acidity. Since pre-Industrial times, pH units have risen 0.1 due to increased carbon. The levels, as well, are expected to continue rising. With such drastic planetary shifts, scientists see the necessity of a new epoch. They even speculate that our modern world may not only be in a transition from one epoch to the next, i.e. the Holocene to the Anthropocene, but may be viewed in the future as a shift from one period to the next (in geology a period can encompass several epochs). If long-lasting changes occur in temperature, ice-volume, sea levels, and biodiversity (i.e. mass extinction) as many scientist's now predict than it may be appropriate to recognize that the Quaternary period (which began nearly two million years ago) is also at an end. To put in perspective the length of the 200-year-long Anthropocene in geologic time, recall the old adage: if geologic time were a single 24-hour-day than human beings would only appear in the last 30 seconds to midnight. The Anthropocene, therefore, would be at the tail's end of the very last second to midnight, comprising the final 50 milliseconds: in other words, half the blink of an eye. To make the Anthropocene official a date or a golden-spike (a stratigraphic section used as a boundary between epochs) needs to be established by the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
Tags: climate change jeremy hance ocean acidification pollution environment green News index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements: Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing
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