Marks of the Anthropocene: 7 signs we have made our own epoch

[Cliffy]

Even if humanity is long gone in tens of millions of years, there will still be a clear sign of us and the way we lived left preserved in our planet’s geological record.
There is now overwhelming evidence that our impact on Earth constitutes its own distinct geological epoch, dating from the middle of the 20th century. Here are the seven signs that will clearly identify the Anthropocene epoch for future geologists.
1.Nuclear weapons

Our war efforts have left their mark on geology. When the first nuclear weapon was detonated on 16 July 1945 in New Mexico, it deposited radionuclides – atoms with excess nuclear energy – across a wide area. Since 1952, more explosive thermonuclear weapons have been tested, leaving a global signature of isotopes such as carbon-14 and plutonium-239.


2. Fossil fuels

The products of burning fossil fuels will also be an obvious giveaway of the Anthropocene. Current rates of carbon emission are thought to be higher than at any time in the last 65 million years. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen sharply since 1850 and now exceeds 400 parts per million, which will be recorded in any Antarctic ice cores that manage to survive global warming. Burning fossil fuels has also increased the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 isotopes, which will be detectable in tree rings, limestone, and fossilised bones and shells. Our fuel consumption also spreads small, unburned particles of carbon in the air, which can become captured in sediments and glacial ice.


http://www.newscientist.com/article...NS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=hoot&cmpid=SOC[NSNS]2015-GLOBAL-hoot

 

[petros]

No we haven't. We are still the Holocene and will be long after dirt worshipping is gone.

 

[Curious Cdn]

3. Pop can zip tops: we don't use them anymore but there is a layer of them laid down in the stratum all around the planet. Bottle caps, too ...

4. Plastics: All sorts of them like polycarbonate, for instance, that will persist for thousands of years.

5. Manufactured metal objects of all types will render fossils in sedimentary rocks that will persist for hundreds of millions of years. It will be obvious that they were produced artificially by sentient beings.

6. Glass objects will remain more or less intact in the strata, not just as fossils. You may be able to read printing and logos molded in glass a half billion years into the future as long as they haven't been exposed to weathering.

 

[DaSleeper]

I love it when people speak with such authority on stuff they googled five minutes before an C/P'd into a forum.....:lol:

 

[Cliffy]

Albert Einstein:

n the late 1980s, Lieserl, the daughter of the famous genius, donated 1,400 letters, written by Einstein, to the Hebrew University, with orders not to publish their contents until two decades after his death. This is one of them, for Lieserl Einstein.
…”When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.
I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.
There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.
This universal force is LOVE.
When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.
Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.
Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.
Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals.
For love we live and die.
Love is God and God is Love.
This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.
To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.
If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.
After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…
If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.
Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.
However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.
When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.
I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.
Your father Albert Einstein