[Rockhounds] The Anthropocene Is a Joke

Fri Aug 16 12:40:26 PDT 2019

Other serious and respected researchers are also proposing the Anthropocene
as an epoch and I would refer you to a recent article in Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02381-2 for further confirmation
and details.

On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 11:34 AM Murowchick, James <murowchickj at umkc.edu>
wrote:

> 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
> > cene/595795/ _______________________________________________
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