Humanity could soon enter a new geological epoch, and it all starts in Canada.
What happened: Researchers have chosen Crawford Lake in Milton, Ontario, as the place that best signifies the start of the Anthropocene—the new geological epoch in which human activity is the dominant influence impacting the planet’s climate and environment.
Why it matters: A new epoch typically comes around once every couple of million years. An official recognition that human activity has changed the Earth enough to warrant a new one is, in the most literal sense of the word, a world-historic event.
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The researchers, the Anthropocene Working Group, concluded in 2016 that we were living in a new epoch and have since been searching for the perfect site to prove it.
- Three global geological authorities need to vote to ratify Crawford Lake before the Anthropocene officially commences, which could happen in August of next year.
Why it happened: Crawford Lake got the (dis)honour due to its meromictic nature, meaning its bottom layer of water doesn’t mix with its top layer and is only affected by things that sink. Amongst the sunken stuff are plutonium particles from 1950s H-bomb tests which the group saw as the ideal indicator of when humans started having a global “fingerprint on our planet.”
Yes, but: The Anthropocene is a disputed topic in geology circles, both because it’s marked by different indicators than previous epochs and simply because some geologists don’t believe humans have actually changed the Earth’s surface enough to warrant it.—QH