Publication Date:
2016-01-09
Description:
Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Waters, Colin N -- Zalasiewicz, Jan -- Summerhayes, Colin -- Barnosky, Anthony D -- Poirier, Clement -- Galuszka, Agnieszka -- Cearreta, Alejandro -- Edgeworth, Matt -- Ellis, Erle C -- Ellis, Michael -- Jeandel, Catherine -- Leinfelder, Reinhold -- McNeill, J R -- Richter, Daniel deB -- Steffen, Will -- Syvitski, James -- Vidas, Davor -- Wagreich, Michael -- Williams, Mark -- Zhisheng, An -- Grinevald, Jacques -- Odada, Eric -- Oreskes, Naomi -- Wolfe, Alexander P -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2016 Jan 8;351(6269):aad2622. doi: 10.1126/science.aad2622.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK. ; Department of Geology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. ; Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER, UK. ; Department of Integrative Biology, Museum of Paleontology, and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. ; Morphodynamique Continentale et Cotiere, Universite de Caen Normandie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 24 Rue des Tilleuls, F-14000 Caen, France. ; Geochemistry and the Environment Division, Institute of Chemistry, Jan Kochanowski University, 15G Swietokrzyska Street, 25-406 Kielce, Poland. ; Departamento de Estratigrafia y Paleontologia, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Universidad del Pais Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Apartado 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain. ; School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. ; Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA. ; Laboratoire d'Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiales (CNRS, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, Universite Paul Sabatier), 14 Avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France. ; Department of Geological Sciences, Freie Universitat Berlin, Malteserstrasse 74-100/D, 12249 Berlin, Germany. ; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. ; Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Box 90233, Durham, NC 27516, USA. ; The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia. ; Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado-Boulder, Box 545, Boulder, CO 80309-0545, USA. ; Marine Affairs and Law of the Sea Programme, The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Lysaker, Norway. ; Department of Geodynamics and Sedimentology, University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. ; State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710061, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. ; Institut de Hautes Etudes Internationales et du Developpement, Chemin Eugene Rigot 2, 1211 Geneve 11, Switzerland. ; Department of Geology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya. ; Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26744408" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Aluminum/analysis
;
*Biota
;
Carbon Cycle
;
Climate
;
Construction Materials/analysis
;
*Earth (Planet)
;
Fossil Fuels/adverse effects
;
Geologic Sediments/*chemistry
;
*Human Activities
;
Humans
;
Ice/analysis
;
Introduced Species
;
Plastics/analysis
;
Radioactive Fallout/analysis
;
Radioisotopes/analysis
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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