Crawford Lake, near Toronto in Canada, was chosen this Tuesday as the world reference site for the beginning of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch characterized by the impact of humanity on Earth that scientists are trying to officially recognize.
The stratified sediments at the bottom of this small, one square kilometer body of water, laden with microplastics, ash from burning oil and coal, and radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb explosions, is the best evidence that a new chapter of Earth’s geological history has been opened, members of the Anthropocene working group concluded.
But official endorsement by world geological authorities that the Earth has emerged from the Holocene, the period that began about 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, to enter the Anthropocene, the “epoch of the ‘human’,” remains uncertain. very uncertain…
The consequences of human activity.
Renowned geologists believe that the technical criteria for qualifying the Anthropocene as a new “epoch” are not met, although they acknowledge that a rupture occurred in the last century.
The sediments of Crawford Lake “offer exceptional testimony to the environmental changes of the last millennia,” summarizes the chair of the working group Simon Turner, from University College London.
And those changes are coming in spectacular fashion: The first week of July was the hottest on record globally, wildfires out of control have been ravaging Canada for months, while the United States and China face heat, flooding and unprecedented droughts.
The traces of human activity (microplastics, eternal chemical pollutants, invasive species, greenhouse gases) are everywhere, from the tops of the mountains to the bottom of the oceans, and the disorders they cause are numerous, to the point to break the natural balances of the globe. .
Last month, scientists announced that the amount of water being pumped into underground reservoirs was such that the Earth’s geographic North Pole had shifted nearly two inches per year.
Source: BFM TV
