Introduction to Environmental Geoscience - The Developing Concept of the Anthropocene PDF

UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL GEOSCIENCE The Developing Concept of the Anthropocene epoch (Chapter 1) Source: Scripps...

UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL GEOSCIENCE The Developing Concept of the Anthropocene epoch (Chapter 1) Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego keelingcurve.ucsd.edu 2020 CO2 Concentration (ppm) 400 Last updated September 24, 2024 2000 350 1980 1960 300 250 200 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IvyMikeCloudTrinity%26Beyond.jpg 10 8 6 4 2 0 Thousands of Years Ago UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 The Developing Concept of the Anthropocene The notion that collective human action is a geomorphological and geological agent altering the Earth is not new. Philosophy and theology over the last few thousand years has sought where to place humans in relation to the transformation, stewardship, domination of nature by humans. Indigenous belief systems globally recognise nature as having intrinsic value, with humans’ being part of the planet, not separate. UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Dawn of the idea of a “human epoch” Comte de Buffon’s Les Époques de la Nature, published in 1778 describes seven ‘epochs’ representing distinct phases in Earth history Buffon, like other men* of the ‘Enlightenment’ was a natural philosopher considering the place of humans in Earth History * Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and others were also were thinking about the place of humans. (right) ‘Seventh and last epoch – When the power of Man assisted the operation of nature’ UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Development of the idea of a “human epoch” 1833, Charles Lyell, Recent epoch “[the time] elapsed since the earth has been tenanted by man” (Lyell, 1833, p. 52). 1854, Thomas Jenkyn, Welsh Geologist and theologian wrote of a ‘human epoch’, an ‘Anthropozoic’, that would leave a fossil record 1864, George Perkins Marsh, Man and nature; or, physical geography as modified by human action. New York, NY: Charles Scribners, 560 pp. Charles Lyell (1797–1875) 1873, Antonio Stoppani (Italian geologist and priest) referred to an Anthropozoic era in his three-volume Corso di Geologia in 1873. “The creation of man constitutes the introduction into nature of a new element with a strength by no means known to ancient worlds” Man, a “telluric (=global) force”. 1922, Sherlock, R. L., Man as a geological agent. London, UK: documented the lithostratigraphic dimension driven by mining, building and related activities Antonio Stoppani (1824–1891) UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Burning fossil fuels will end up cooking the planet! Svante Arrhenius 1859-1922 Theory of the importance of the CO2 content of the atmosphere for the climate. Calculations on increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere, enough to prevent another glacial period https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19021015_Hint_to_Coal _Consumers_-_Svante_Arrhenius_-_The_Selma_Morning_Times_- _Global_warming.jpg UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Twentieth century flowering of ideas about impact of humans on the planet not advanced by everyone. 1925: Edward Wilber Berry on the ‘Psychozoic’ “No one would…gainsay the magnitude and multifarious effects of human activity, but these are scarcely of geological magnitude.” “… not only a false assumption, but altogether wrong in principle, and … really nurtured as a surviving or atavistic principle from the holocentric philosophy of the Middle Ages…” UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 The Anthropocene concept effectively originated as an improvised suggestion by Paul Crutzen in 2000, at an International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) meeting in Mexico. It was published the same year. UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 The Anthropocene (Crutzen) Hypothesis Arose from the Earth System science community, not the global environmental change or geoscience communities Based on a complex systems framing of Earth System dynamics – state and transition – not on the imprint of humans on the local, regional or global environment Explicitly proposed as a new epoch to follow the Holocene in the Geological Time Scale Crutzen (2002) Nature (right) aligned the Anthropocene with the start of the Industrial Revolution (19th century CE, 1800 CE) UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 The Industrial Revolution; Anthropocene starting at ~1800 CE Affirmed view of Crutzen (2002) Initial changes to carbon/nitrogen cycles End of the Northern Hemisphere ‘Little Ice Age’ ~1850 Could align with 1815 Tambora eruption Western European-/UK-centric view; a lot of diachroneity Above: The world's first iron bridge, erected in 1779 over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale (renamed Ironbridge), UK UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Diachronous start to the Industrial Revolution (Above) Approximate age for the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and subsequent industrialization across the planet. This is a subjective event, here interpreted as the widespread growth of mechanization in respect to manufacturing, transport and innovation. Waters et al. 2014, Geological Society, London, Spec. Publ., 395 https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/pdf/10.1144/sp395.18 UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Initial stratigraphic analysis suggested new, significant trends from ~1800 CE Zalasiewicz et al 2008 GSA Today 18 (2), 4–8 https://rock.geosociety.org/gsatod - 2006 Meeting of Stratigraphy ay/archive/18/2/pdf/i1052-5173- Commission of the Geological 18-2-4.pdf Society of London UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Great Acceleration concept Term first used in the context of the ‘second stage’ of the Anthropocene, following the Industrial Revolution UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Steffen et al. 2015 Anthropocene Review, 2, 81–98 UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Initiation of the Anthropocene Working Group The GSA Today article gave rise in 2009 to an invitation for Jan Zalasiewicz to establish an Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the ICS Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Jan Zalasiewicz (Chair, AWG) Colin Waters (Secretary, AWG) UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 The Anthropocene Observatory Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo, 22-23rd April 2016 Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 16-17th October 2014 Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, 6-7th September 2018 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University, 24-25th November 2015 UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Published use of “Anthropocene” Publications using the term Citation of these works, in title, abstract, or text from the Scopus database (from Zalasiewicz et al. 2017, Newsletters on Stratigraphy 50, 205–226)  UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A | vol. 369 no. 1938 pp. 833–1112 | 13 Mar 2011 ISSN 1364-503X volume 369 2011 number 1938 9 · number 1938 · pages 833–1112 h of geological time? pages 833–1112 y Mark Williams, Jan Zalasiewicz, The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time? 835 Papersof a Theme Issue compiled and edited by Mark Williams, Jan Zalasiewicz, Alan Haywood and Mike Ellis 842 nthropocene 868 887 909 926 greenhouse warming? 933 H. J. Dowsett, A. M. Dolan, 957 The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time? dams in the unglaciated 976 N. Potter, W. Hilgartner, C. Scheid, L. Kratz, A. Shilling, Voli, E. Ohlson, A. Neugebauer, 1010 1036 Coe, P. R. Bown, P. F. Rawson, P. Pearson, R. Knox, J. Powell, n the Anthropocene: 1056 ry, UK: sediment-hosted Pb, carbon and polychlorinated 1085 s & D. G. Jones yond: the potential for a global 1112 The world’sfirst science journal rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org Published in Great Britain by the Royal Society, 6–9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG 13 March 2011 Thematic sets of papers were published by AWG in 2011 and 2014 UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Waters et al. 2016, Science, v.351 Issue 6269 UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 Summary of key stratigraphic signals Novel materials (aluminium, concrete, plastic, minerals, fuel ash, artificial deposits) Chemostratigraphic signals (fossil fuel combustion, climate change, nitrogen cycle, radiogenic fallout) Biostratigraphic signals (extinctions, adaptations and species invasions, introductions and domestications) Potential chrono-stratigraphic boundary optimally at mid-20th century UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 2016 AWG announcement on interim recommendations International Geological Congress, Cape Town 2018 – 2019 search initiated for a Global Boundary Stratotype and Point (GSSP) UCL Earth Sciences: GEOL0076 The Anthropocene Epoch Chapter 2 “Fallout” to be continued… - Presently there are two series/epochs of the Quaternary. The Pleistocene Epoch associated with multiple glacial and interglacial events. - The succeeding Holocene is the latest formal epoch, ranging from 11700 years to the present, coinciding with the current interglacial. - The epoch proposal is that the Chibanian Holocene has terminated, to be followed by the Anthropocene, also greater than 2 orders of magnitude shorter than the Holocene.