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Post by creature386 on Jan 10, 2016 17:32:53 GMT 5
Geologists are currently debating if the fingerprints of the massive human activities will have an impact on the geological time scale. www.climatecentral.org/news/earth-pushed-into-the-anthropocene-19895It is argued that the global warming, massive farming, the use of fossil fuels and so on will be detectable in millions of years. The proposed epoch is called Anthropocene and began in the 50's. What do you guys think? Did we just enter a new geological epoch? P.S. I wonder how intelligent life in the future will interpret the Anthropocene once they discover it. That would have to be a bit like discovering intelligent aliens. |
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Post by theropod on Jan 10, 2016 18:03:13 GMT 5
That would make the Holocene ridiculously short. In fact, the whole Holocene is still so young that on a geological timescale everything that happened would be considered part of the same event (e.g. the K/T event’s duration may be in a similar order of magnitude). And human impact has certainly existed and gradually increased throughout the holocene, so the cause is the same and has been present continuously.
So I think it’s not in keeping with the usual concepts of geological timescales to start a new epoch, even though I must admit anthropocene is a very fitting name.
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Post by creature386 on Jan 10, 2016 18:36:42 GMT 5
It is a bit hard to compare the recent to the deep past as we have far more precise dating methods for the former. The aforementioned future intelligent species would hardly be able to identify such a short Holocene, due to the error margin of dating methods, so you probably have a point. But on the other hand, I'm not sure how relevant the Holocene will be in a long-run anyway, even when disregarding a possible new epoch. After all, it is currently merely defined as an interglacial in an ice age that is likely not over yet. Thus, I don't think it will be a long epoch on a geological time scale either way.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Jan 10, 2016 19:13:24 GMT 5
I wonder if what can be considered the Holocene will extend at least a few million years into the future. Maybe then it could appear more significant to a later potential intelligent species.
But of course, as it is now, it would be considered pretty damn petty.
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Post by theropod on Jan 10, 2016 19:48:09 GMT 5
I think the Holocene wouldn’t make any sense as an epoch otherwise.
We’re talking about geology, not history. There’d be nothing significant enough about a 10ka period that only fills a gap between the end of one glaciation and the start of another epoch slightly later, unless you recognise the role of humans, in which case it marks the beginning of the anthropocene (just that "Holocene" would, take precedence, so everything stays as it is). Otherwise, why not just give every interglacial its own epoch?
Some million years in the future, that timespan would probably not even be recognized as distinct.
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Post by creature386 on Jan 10, 2016 20:13:27 GMT 5
I am not sure if even adding the role of humans to the Holocene could make it significant. We can so far hardly predict if the human intervention will last long enough to be noticeable geologically (remember, most of the resource-use happened within the last 60 years). I guess it would be the most sensible to classify the entire Ice Age as one epoch from a future point of view.
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Post by theropod on Jan 10, 2016 20:29:05 GMT 5
Yes, probably. We’ll never know.
I meant that if we use the arguments that support the usage of "anthropocene", the same arguments are the only ones that make the holocene significant too. Either one of them or neither imo
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