[Rockhounds] The Anthropocene Is a Joke

Thu Aug 15 08:21:09 PDT 2019

I agree--what politics?  I've been a professional geologist and educator for nearly 40 years.  Changes marking the boundaries of stratigraphic units and their time equivalents have often been caused by events that left a recognizable mark in the geologic record.  For the major time-stratigraphic units, those markers can be found globally, which is what makes them so valuable for correlation  of distantly separated stratigraphic units.  Whether the marker was natural or man-made is irrelevant--geologists just need a recognizable marker to use.  Granted, this is the first time that a man-made signature has been proposed to mark of the start of a new geological epoch, and the signature of atomic testing has left a global, distinctive marker future geologists should be able to recognize.  But such a designation is not meant as a comment on our impact on the environment, though it might be portrayed that way in some media.  

As for having been around for too short a time (or producing too thin a unit)--that also is not a factor for designation of a new time unit.  The Mesozoic ended in a flash, starting what we now call the Quaternary.  I would not be surprised if that change occurred in a shorter period of time than that reflecting man's mark on the planet.
	Maybe humans will be around long enough to leave a longer, thicker geological record.  Maybe we will disappear as a species much sooner than thought, leaving a record comparable to a thin ash bed.  We can't predict the future, but qualified stratigraphers feel there is enough evidence to formally mark the start of a new epoch.  

Jim
Dr. James B. Murowchick
Professor, Geochemistry & Mineralogy
Principal Graduate Advisor & IPhD Coordinator, Geosciences
Department of Geosciences
University of Missouri-Kansas City
420 Flarsheim Hall 
5110 Rockhill Road 
Kansas City, MO  64110
Office: 816 235-2979
Department Office: 816 235-1334
Fax: 816 235-5535
murowchickj at umkc.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> On Behalf Of Andrew Turner
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 5:49 PM
To: rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] The Anthropocene Is a Joke

I thought this was a fascinating article and completely worthy to be posted on this site.  It was a bit political, but really didn't take a side.  In fact, the basic synopsis was that it really doesn't matter what we think about climate change, nuclear warfare, effect of human impact, etc., overall our entire existence will eventually become an insignificant layer in geologic history of the planet.  Going through "recent" geologic history to show that we have seen far greater changes in the past and likely will in the future as well as illustrating the incredible time frames involved with certain events was extremely educational.  It also asks the question about whether there may have been more intelligent life in the past or might be in the future (however that may look).  Although I find the comment about dinosaurs mining asteroids comical, it was the general idea that was intriguing.

Now, you can obviously disagree with everything presented in the article, especially concerning the overall impact of humans on the earth in such a short period of time.  But, overly political, it is not.  However, as a geologist, it really helped explain what the earth has gone through and how it rebounded from very catastrophic events in the past.  I will definitely share this with my family as it is a good read regardless of your (or mine) leanings.

Andrew Turner, PG
Salt Lake City, UT

________________________________
From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> on behalf of Dora Smith <tiggernut24 at yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2019 3:09 PM
To: rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] The Anthropocene Is a Joke

This is a political argument and not appropriate here.

The notion of the anthropocene rests on the notion that humans have had an entirely destructive impact on our planet.???? If not, then the term has no meaning.???? Humans have been intelligent enough to have any impact on their environment for only a half a million years!?? The term certainly has no geological meaning!

Dora

On 8/14/19 2:50 PM, Kreigh Tomaszewski wrote:
> Humans are now living in a new geological epoch of our own making: the 
> Anthropocene. Or so we???re told. Whereas some epochs in Earth history 
> stretch more than 40 million years, this new chapter started maybe 400 
> years ago, when carbon dioxide dipped by a few parts per million in 
> the atmosphere. Or perhaps, as a panel of scientists voted earlier 
> this year 
> <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01641-5?utm_source=Nature+
> Briefing&utm_campaign=4037068ff3-briefing-dy-20190522>,
> the epoch started as recently as 75 years ago, when atomic weapons 
> began to dust the planet with an evanescence of strange radioisotopes.
>
> These are unusual claims about geology, a field that typically deals 
> with mile-thick packages of rock stacked up over tens of millions of 
> years, wherein entire mountain ranges are born and weather away to 
> nothing within a single unit of time, in which extremely precise rock 
> dates???single-frame snapshots from deep time???can come with 
> 50,000-year error bars, a span almost 10 times as long as all of 
> recorded human history. If having an epoch shorter than an error bar seems strange, well, so is the Anthropocene.
>
>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/arrogance-anthropo
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