Environmental Damage Is Bad Enough To Create A New Geologic Period

[applegrove]

Environmental Damage Is Bad Enough To Create A New Geologic Period

by Alejandro Davila Fragoso at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/07/3736892/humans-caused-a-new-planet-epoch/

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Now, a new study is adding fuel to that debate, finding that human influence on the environment changed the planet so dramatically that the world recently moved into a new geological epoch. In other words, there’s scientific proof that we’re living in the Anthropocene, the study’s researchers say.

In the study, published Thursday in the journal Science, the international Anthropocene Working Group states that the man-made Anthropocene epoch is distinct and likely starts in the mid 20th century, as human influence on the planet increased dramatically when the nuclear age began.

“The paper that has just been released … is in effect saying we also think we know what level of hierarchy this [Anthropocene] unit is. We think it’s an epoch level,” said Colin Waters, co-author and secretary of the working group, in an interview with ThinkProgress. “The reason for that is the scale of the changes being every bit, if not greater than, the changes that happened in the beginning of the Holocene.”

Humanity is formally living in the Holocene Epoch, and has being doing so for about 11,700 years. In the past, geologists have divided Earth’s time based on continental movement, or major shifts in climate and fossil evolution. Evidence for these changes have to be measurable around the world at a similar scale, and that’s been proven traditionally through rock, sediments or ice records.



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