An excellent article recently appeared in GSA Today
explaining how stratigraphy is defined, and how the proposal to rename a recent
portion of the late Holocene as the Anthropocene needs to stay within the
rules. Anyone interested in the
Anthropocene should read this description of how stratigraphic definition
applies to this case.
As a personal note, one thing I have noticed is that
stratigraphic time is usually (but not always) defined on the basis of the
first appearance of an index fossil, usually a common, widespread microfossil
which appears shortly after the boundary.
From this point of view, calling the next epoch the Anthropocene
seems arrogant. After all, we don’t know what the next index fossil is going
to be yet, since we don’t know who or what will survive our current industrial climatic
perturbation.
If Presidents Cruz (Or Trump, or Clinton) and Putin blow each other up, then the
next epoch probably ought to be the cockroachecene. If we kill off everything
that evolved since the Ediacaran, it would be the Jellyfishecene* Calling the Anthropocene implies that we are
in control, that we know what we are doing, and that we know we are going to
survive. This strikes me as overconfident. Our current situation is probably
best described as an “End-Holocene Multi Proxy Anomaly," or EHMPA. But we have a lot of
work to do if we want to be in control of whatever comes next. Calling it the Anthropocene
seems premature.
.
* Jellyfish would make terrible index fossils.
By this logic, the naming is obvious, and it doesn't matter what survives. This era will be the Plasticene.
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