{"id":16474,"date":"2024-03-06T00:46:11","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T00:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/06\/proposal-to-mark-a-new-chapter-in-earths-history-will-go-no-further-scientists-say\/"},"modified":"2024-03-06T00:46:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T00:46:11","slug":"proposal-to-mark-a-new-chapter-in-earths-history-will-go-no-further-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/06\/proposal-to-mark-a-new-chapter-in-earths-history-will-go-no-further-scientists-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposal to mark a new chapter in Earth\u2019s history will \u2018go no further,\u2019 scientists say"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scientists have voted against a proposal to declare a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene to reflect how profoundly human activity has altered the planet. <\/p>\n

The vote followed a 15-year process to select a geological site that best captures humanity\u2019s impact on the planet. The international union\u2019s <\/strong>Anthropocene Working Group, which spearheaded the effort, made a July 2023 announcement <\/strong>that identified the location as Crawford Lake in Ontario because of the way sediment from the lake bed reveals the geochemical traces of nuclear bomb tests, specifically plutonium, from 1950. <\/p>\n

The vote was not unanimous, said Kim Cohen, an assistant professor of geosciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and a voting member of the subcommission.
\u201cThere were some abstainees. There was a minority of yeses to a majority of nos,\u201d said Cohen, who voted in favor of the proposal. <\/p>\n

Phil\u00a0Gibbard, a professor <\/strong>emeritus of quaternary paleoenvironments <\/strong>at the Scott Polar Research Institute <\/strong>at the University of <\/strong>Cambridge <\/strong>in the United Kingdom, and a voting member of the subcommission, said that the \u201cproposal for a formal Anthropocene was rejected by a 66% vote.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018Very disappointing\u2019<\/h3>\n

The geologic time scale provides the official framework for our understanding of Earth\u2019s 4.5 billion-year history. Geologists break down our planet\u2019s history into eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages \u2014 with an eon being the largest chunk of time and an age the shortest. <\/strong> <\/p>\n

While few <\/strong>scientists doubt the impact humans have made on the planet, the geological community was divided about whether the changes rose to the level of epoch, suggesting it was too soon in geological terms for such a declaration. <\/p>\n

Some experts <\/strong>argued that the start of the Anthropocene could be better defined in other ways, such as the beginning of the <\/strong>Industrial Revolution. <\/strong>Others have suggested the impact of humans on Earth was better classified as a geological event that unfolds gradually over a long period of time. <\/p>\n

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Related article<\/span> Stone Age megastructure found submerged in the Baltic Sea wasn\u2019t formed by nature, scientists say<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Colin Waters, the chair of the AWG who led the development of the proposal to make the Anthropocene an official part of Earth\u2019s geological history, said the outcome of the vote was \u201cvery disappointing.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have as a group many eminent researchers in their field of expertise who wish to carry on as a group, in an informal capacity, that will continue to argue the case that the evidence for the Anthropocene as an epoch should be formalised, as consistent with the scientific data presented in the submission,\u201d said Waters, an honorary professor at the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at the University of Leicester, via email. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the above vote is confirmed \u2026 then the current proposal cannot progress, but given the existing evidence, which continues to grow, I would not be surprised if there is a future call for a proposal to be reconsidered,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The term \u2018Anthropocene\u2019 is in wide use<\/h3>\n

The proposal will not go any further at this stage, said David Harper, a professor emeritus of paleontology at Durham University and the chair of the International Committee of Stratigraphy, which would have held a vote on the proposal if the subcommission had passed it. <\/p>\n

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Related article<\/span> A shallow lake in Canada could point to the origin of life on Earth<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The committee is also <\/strong>part of the International Union of Geological Sciences, which represents more than 1 million geoscientists around the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the commission\u2019s expert group for this interval of geological time and we are bound by its decision. The current proposal will proceed no further according to our statutes,\u201d Harper said via email, adding that he hadn\u2019t been officially informed of the decision and wouldn\u2019t comment any further. <\/p>\n

Cohen said there were several arguments both for and against the proposal raised during the six-week period of discussion by the subcommission, but declined to give further detail. Regardless of whether the term is officially classified as a geological epoch, Anthropocene is already widely in use, Cohen noted. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody talks about it already. In journals, many people use it. But in geology, not so many as all the other sciences,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have voted against a proposal to declare a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene to reflect how profoundly human activity has altered the planet. The vote followed a 15-year process to select a geological site that best captures humanity\u2019s impact on the planet. The international union\u2019s Anthropocene Working Group, which spearheaded the effort, made <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}