Head, Martin J;
Zalasiewicz, Jan A;
Waters, Colin N;
Turner, Simon D;
Williams, Mark;
Barnosky, Anthony D;
Steffen, Will;
... Summerhayes, Colin P; + view all
(2022)
The Anthropocene is a prospective epoch/series, not a geological event.
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10.18814/epiiugs/2022/022025.
(In press).
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Abstract
The Anthropocene defined as an epoch/series within the Geological Time Scale, and with an isochronous inception in the mid-20th century, would both utilize the rich array of stratigraphic signals associated with the Great Acceleration and align with Earth System science analysis from where the term Anthropocene originated. It would be stratigraphically robust and reflect the reality that our planet has far exceeded the range of natural variability for the Holocene Epoch/Series which it would terminate. An alternative, recently advanced, time-transgressive ‘geological event’ definition would decouple the Anthropocene from its stratigraphic characterisation and association with a major planetary perturbation. We find this proposed anthropogenic ‘event’ to be primarily an interdisciplinary concept in which historical, cultural and social processes and their global environmental impacts are all flexibly interpreted within a multi-scalar framework. It is very different from a stratigraphic-methods-based Anthropocene epoch/series designation, but as an anthropogenic phenomenon, if separately defined and differently named, might be usefully complementary to it.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Anthropocene is a prospective epoch/series, not a geological event |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.18814/epiiugs/2022/022025 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2022/022025 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10155160 |
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