Anthropocene era: Humans changed the Earth's geology by setting off atomic bombs in 1945

[bananas]

Source: International Business Times

An international group of scientists has proposed that the Anthropocene era, a new chapter in the Earth's geological history, occurred at the dawn of the nuclear age 70 years ago.

<snip>

Now, the Anthropocene Working Group, which is made up of researchers from 24 institutions around the world, has proposed that the Anthropocene could have in fact occurred on 16 July 1945 with the testing of the first atomic bomb in Mexico.

<snip>

Their research, entitled When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal, is published in the journal Quaternary International, and will be presented to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland next week.

<snip>

"When we first aggregated these datasets, we expected to see major changes but what surprised us was the timing," Professor Will Steffen of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme in Stockholm told the Telegraph.

"Almost all graphs show the same pattern. The most dramatic shifts have occurred since 1950. We can say that around 1950 was the start of the Great Acceleration.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anthropocene-era-humans-changed-earths-geology-by-setting-off-atomic-bombs-1945-1483759

[bananas]

1. Nature World News: Humans Have Been Living in New Epoch for Last 50 Years

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/11990/20150116/humans-have-been-living-in-new-epoch-for-last-50-years.htm

Humans Have Been Living in New Epoch for Last 50 Years
By Jenna Iacurci
Jan 16, 2015 01:26 PM EST

It turns out that humans have actually been living in a new epoch for the last 50 years, beginning on July 16, 1945 with the dawn of the nuclear era, a new study says.

<snip>

The Anthropocene Working Group - a group of scientists and humanists - assembled in Berlin last year with the goal of "developing a proposal for the formal ratification of the Anthropocene as an official unit amending the Geological Time Scale," they wrote in a news release.

The term was first proposed in the 1980s by Nobel Prize winning chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000.

And while it no doubt will be an uphill battle to make the Anthropocene idea official - it took about 15 years to name the last epoch, the Ediacaran period some 600 million years ago - the Anthropocene Working Group has given itself until 2016 to do so.

<snip>

[bananas]

2. Abstract

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618214009136

When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal

Jan Zalasiewicz, Colin N. Waters, Mark Williams, Anthony D. Barnosky, Alejandro Cearreta, Paul Crutzen, Erle Ellis, Michael A. Ellis, Ian J. Fairchild, Jacques Grinevald, Peter K. Haff, Irka Hajdas, Reinhold Leinfelder, John McNeill, Eric O. Odada, Clément Poirier, Daniel Richter, Will Steffen, Colin Summerhayes, James P.M. Syvitski, Davor Vidas, Michael Wagreich, Scott L. Wing, Alexander P. Wolfe, Zhisheng An, Naomi Oreskes

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045

Abstract

We evaluate the boundary of the Anthropocene geological time interval as an epoch, since it is useful to have a consistent temporal definition for this increasingly used unit, whether the presently informal term is eventually formalized or not.

Of the three main levels suggested – an ‘early Anthropocene’ level some thousands of years ago; the beginning of the Industrial Revolution at ?1800 CE (Common Era); and the ‘Great Acceleration’ of the mid-twentieth century – current evidence suggests that the last of these has the most pronounced and globally synchronous signal.

A boundary at this time need not have a Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP or ‘golden spike’) but can be defined by a Global Standard Stratigraphic Age (GSSA), i.e. a point in time of the human calendar.

We propose an appropriate boundary level here to be the time of the world's first nuclear bomb explosion, on July 16th 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico; additional bombs were detonated at the average rate of one every 9.6 days until 1988 with attendant worldwide fallout easily identifiable in the chemostratigraphic record.

Hence, Anthropocene deposits would be those that may include the globally distributed primary artificial radionuclide signal, while also being recognized using a wide range of other stratigraphic criteria.

This suggestion for the Holocene–Anthropocene boundary may ultimately be superseded, as the Anthropocene is only in its early phases, but it should remain practical and effective for use by at least the current generation of scientists.

[carla]

9. Not very accurate reporting.

"...16 July 1945 with the testing of the first atomic bomb in Mexico (???!!!). They couldn't even bother to look up the right location? For the rest of us, let me make it clear it was in Los Alamos , NEW MEXICO, USA...it was known as "Trinity". No surprise it changed more than politics on this planet.

[magical thyme]

10. ???? abstract very clearly says New Mexico; and Trinity was exploded in Alamorgordo

from the abstract itself:

"on July 16th 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico; "


"It is the city nearest to Holloman Air Force Base. The population was 30,403 as of the 2010 census. Alamogordo is known for its connection with the Trinity test, the first explosion of an atomic bomb, and also for the Atari video game burial of 1983."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamogordo,_New_Mexico

[machI]

11. Trinity Site

https://www.google.com/maps/place/N33.6776087,W106.4764662/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

[bananas]

3. Ironically, nuclear weapons were improperly declared off-topic in the Environment/Energy forum

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112720331

Sat Jul 21, 2012, 05:06 PM

Star Member kristopher (25,156 posts)

Why are threads about the consequences of the spread of nuclear ENERGY being locked?

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by XemaSab (a host of the Environment & Energy group).

Since when have the external or non-monitized costs of energy not been an acceptable topic for Environment and Energy?

There are 4 primary problems associated with the idea of using nuclear energy to address climate change:
Cost
Safety
Waste
Proliferation

Events associated with proliferation concerns - such as potential or actual wars to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons under the guise of "civilian" nuclear power - are legitimate topics for discussion.

[bananas]

4. Here's a thread that was improperly locked, then unlocked, then improperly locked again

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11278359

Fri Mar 2, 2012, 10:28 AM

bananas (24,293 posts)

Obama to Iran and Israel: 'As President of the United States, I Don't Bluff' (xpost)

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by XemaSab (a host of the Environment & Energy group). If you believe this was done in error, please contact XemaSab to appeal.

"he will order the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear program if economic sanctions fail"

<snip>

[bananas]

5. Here's a thread that wasn't locked

I think I posted this after a different thread was locked.
The denial on this issue is stunning.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x288741

Sun Apr-17-11 06:12 PM
Original message

Reminder: John Holdren: "The most important environmental liability of nuclear fission is..."

"The most important environmental liability of
nuclear fission is neither the routine nor accidental emissions
of radioactivity, but the deliberate misuse of nuclear facilities
and materials for acts of terrorism and war."
- John Holdren, Assessing Environmental Risks of Energy

John Holdren is President Obama's science advisor.

<snip>

1. One year ago: Hillary Clinton: India, Pakistan have upset nuclear deterrent balance

<snip>

3. NEI: proliferation is "the most serious economic, social and human issue around nuclear energy"

Even paid nuclear industry spokesman Patrick Moore called nuclear weapons proliferation "the most serious economic, social and human issue around nuclear energy."

<snip>

[navarth]

15. Why were those threads locked??? nt

[Brother Buzz]

6. Sound like the Anthropocene Working Group is equally blaming plastic

Researchers Propose Earth's 'Anthropocene' Age of Humans Began With Fallout and Plastics

By Andrew C. Revkin
15 January , 2015

As many readers are aware, I’ve been writing since 1992 about the notion that we’ve left the Holocene behind — that’s the geological epoch since the end of the last ice age — and entered “a post-Holocene…geological age of our own making,” now best known as the Anthropocene.

That idea has gained a lot of traction, but a formal decision by the International Commission on Stratigraphy is years away. In the meantime, a subsidiary body, the Anthropocene Working Group (because of my early writings, I’m a lay member), has moved substantially from asking whether such a transition has occurred to deciding when.

In a paper published online this week by the journal Quaternary International, 26 members of the working group point roughly to 1950 as the starting point, indicated by a variety of markers, including the global spread of carbon isotopes from nuclear weapon detonations starting in 1945 and the mass production and disposal of plastics. (About six billion tons have been made, with a billion of those tons dumped and a substantial amount spread around the world’s seas.)

<more>

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/researchers-propose-earths-anthropocene-age-of-humans-began-with-fallout-and-plastics/?_r=0

[Downwinder]

7. That window could also cover

July 8, 1947.

[machI]

8. .

[Johnny Rash]

12. Priceless! And, right on TARGET, too!

In geological time,



Man's footprints on the planet, would be nothing but a thin layer of dust barely visible , to the Geologist of the future.

[jwirr]

13. That statement does not include all the testing and other countries who have since exploded their

own. I am sure that none of it helped the planet and I am sure that because of them there are more pollutants in the atmosphere. So this should not come as a surprise.

[hunter]

14. Bah. The reason to choose atomic weapons is that open air testing...

...has left a very precise marker in the geologic record.

It didn't "change geology." Greenhouse gases and other fossil fueled phenomena (in which I'd include modern warfare and human overpopulation) are what tipped the earth into the Anthropocene, not atomic bombs.

Geologically, in a rough way, it's going to be all our discarded consumer crap that will be the easiest geologic marker to read, possibly followed by random fields of human fossils, the remains of malnourished plague or war victims who died without anyone having the strength left to carry out any customary funeral practices.

[Orsino]

17. +1

Stupid headline, but the atomic age is a defensible choice of boundary for the new era.

[RobertEarl]

16. Fucking science

Gawd, what will science tell us next?

That man-made radiation is bad for cellular life forms?

That would upset more than a few, eh?