The Anthropocene Working Group proposes Crawford Lake near Toronto as a designated geological repository of evidence, marking the transition into the human era
Anthropocene, the term given to a new geological epoch defined by the profound impact of human activities on the Earth’s systems, finally has a starting date: 1950.
The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) on July 11, 2023, proposed that the new era, christened by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen in 2000, started just after World War II. The unique reference point for the Anthropocene is Crawford Lake near Toronto in Canada’s Ontario Province.
The reason for the year and the locale being selected stems from the fact that it shows traces of the radioactive element, Plutonium.
The Germany-based Max Planck Society, which announced the start of the Anthropocene along with the AWG, said in a note on its website:
In this Canadian lake, calcium and carbonate ions from the surrounding rocks combine and crystallize into small calcite crystals when the water is warm. These crystals gradually sink and form a distinct white layer at the lake bottom each summer.
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This natural phenomenon, it added, provided researchers with a precise chronological marker, allowing them to determine the specific year being examined.
“Around the year 1950, there is a notable increase in the concentration of plutonium particles. This significant change serves as a clear indication of human impact and, consequently, provides evidence of the Anthropocene era,” the Society noted.
It added that “the research findings of Crawford Lake provided strong evidence for the AWG’s hypothesis that the unprecedented increase in industrial and socioeconomic activity of the Great Acceleration around the mid-twentieth century has caused alterations to the Earth System on a scale that terminated ~11,700 years of largely stable Holocene conditions and marks the beginning of a new Earth epoch”.
The Society pointed out that the proposal would be voted on further within the scientific community.
“If the proposal wins the necessary majority support, the International Union of Geological Sciences could officially ratify the new Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point in August 2024,” it said.
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Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada. Photo: iStock.png)
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