
Mark WilliamsUniversity of Leicester | LE · Department of Geology
Mark Williams
BSc PhD
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Publications (438)
An ostracod assemblage from the Late Ordovician (Katian) Phu Ngu Formation of northern Vietnam, South China paleoplate, yields typical Baltic and Laurentian- affinity genera together with some endemic forms. Detailed paleontological and sedimentary analysis of the Phu Ngu Formation suggests it was deposited in a deeper marine forearc setting, belo...
An erratic chert pebble discovered on an exposure of the Lowestoft Till (Anglian Stage, Pleistocene) of North Lopham, Norfolk, UK, contains three-dimensionally preserved, silicified graptolites in a mode of preservation not known in the UK. The graptolites are Monograptus parapriodon , Monograptus priodon , Monoclimacis linnarssoni and an undetermi...
The formalisation of the Anthropocene as a subdivision of the Geological Time Scale has been under debate. Its stratigraphic boundary has been proposed as a precise Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in the mid-20th century, but it is part of an episode of human-induced changes to the Earth System that have unfolded over millennia....
Metro shaft and tunnel construction involves extensive ground reworking, both close to the surface and far below. Focusing on the London metro as a case study, this chapter examines how metro cuts come to be embedded in stratigraphic successions. Rather than see these as just modern disturbances of archaeological and geological strata, here we exam...
From the Abstract: The technosphere sensu Peter Haff [12] has auton- omous qualities, being not so much human-directed as incorporating dependent, strongly divided human soci- eties, while parasitizing its parent biosphere for energy and materials. By far the most recent and rapidly evolving of Earth’s ‘spheres’, it is also the most unsta- ble, rec...
From the Abstract: The Anthropocene is a particularly powerful con- ceptual tool, and encapsulates the complex intercon- nectivity of all the ‘-spheres’ on this planet. It quickly became a key framing concept for Earth System re- searchers. From this, and from its subsequent geologi- cal analysis, it grew to spark off considerable cross- disciplina...
From the Abstract: The biogeophysical and socio-political knowledge of the Anthropocene, while transforming our understanding of the Earth System, is also renewing our understanding of human existence and raising questions about education at a time when profound existential challenges are looming. These issues are now inextricably linked. Human exi...
Public value and city governance are fundamental notions in contemporary settings, but, currently conceived, they are not fit for the challenges presented by the proposed new epoch of geological time—the Anthropocene. Walking through the locked-down streets or calle of Venice, we face the sudden emptiness that starkly reveals the impact of human ac...
Increasing human interactions with the biosphere over tens of millennia have left a fossil record that shows the growing geographical spread and technological sophistication of humans evident in patterns of extinction and domestication of the landscape and its plants and animals. Here, we focus on the "Great Acceleration" of the mid-20th century (e...
Applying the basic principles of carbon chemistry and physics, along with a comprehensive understanding of past climate change, Steffen and colleagues confirmed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, in 2018, that fossil fuel usage and resulting carbon emissions will cause substantial global warming into future millennia. The c...
A common sense: The Anthropocene was originally understood by Crutzen as not only representing humanity’s influence on Earth’s geological record (he was well aware of earlier anthropogenic impacts), but also reflecting a system with physical characteristics that had, since widespread industrialization, departed from the prolonged, relatively stable...
Introduction: Geology as an organized science is little more than two centuries old (Rudwick 2014), a newcomer compared with academic disciplines such as mathematics, philosophy - and indeed ethics. It has been a practical newcomer, too. Even among its 18th-century roots, references to resources, and their exploitation, are common. The Comte de Buf...
Kylinxia zhangi, Fengzhengia mamingae, and Bushizheia yangi, early branching upper stem-group euarthropods from the early Cambrian Chengjiang biota of China, each possesses a fully arthrodised body and limbs. The morphologies of their frontal appendages bear a resemblance to the raptorial appendages of radiodonts. However, we cannot be certain whet...
The "Great Acceleration" beginning in the mid-20th century provides the causal mechanism of the Anthro-pocene, which has been proposed as a new epoch of geological time beginning in 1952 CE. Here we identify key parameters and their diagnostic palaeontological signals of the Anthropocene, including the rapid breakdown of discrete biogeographical ra...
Abstract: The “Great Acceleration” of the mid-20th century provides the causal mechanism of the Anthropocene, which has been proposed as a new epoch of geological time beginning in 1952 CE. Here we identify key parameters and their diagnostic palaeontological signals of the Anthropocene, including the rapid breakdown of discrete biogeographical ran...
Bushizheia yangi O'Flynn & Liu, a euarthropod from the lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Konservat-Lagerstätte, possesses both raptorial frontal appendages sharing traits with stem-group euarthropods, and deuteropodan characters shared by all extant euarthropods (e.g. dorsal arthrodization and arthropodization of all limbs). Microtomogr...
The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) has concluded that the Anthropocene represents geological reality and should be linked with the plethora of stratigraphic proxies that initiate or show marked perturbations at around the 1950s, and should be defined using a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP). We propose formalizing the Anthropoc...
This part of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) submission proposes that the base of the Anthropocene should be defined as series/epoch, terminating the Holocene Series/Epoch with a single Crawfordian stage/age using a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in an annually varved Crawford Lake core, Ontario, Canada, defined at 17.5 cm...
Abstract: We synthesize research from complementary scientific fields to address the likely extent and duration of the proposed Anthropocene epoch. Ongoing intensification of human-forced climate change began in the mid-20th century, with steepening increases in greenhouse gases, ocean acidification, global temperature and sea level, along with the...
This is the Executive Summary of a report produced by the membership of the Anthropocene Working Group as part of a submission to the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy to seek formalisation of the Anthropocene as an epoch of geological time. It summarises the content of two reports and their associated appendices which provide a background t...
The Anthropocene as a prospective new, ongoing series/epoch must be defensible against all relevant concerns. We address the seven, still-relevant challenges posed to the Anthropocene Working Group by the Chair, International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), in 2014. (1) Concept or reality? The Anthropocene possesses a substantial, sharply distinc...
Aim
Worldwide, floras are becoming homogenized at global scales, but regional patterns vary. Here, we present the first assessment for the Malesian phytogeographical region in terms of the timing of introductions, direction, magnitude and drivers of floristic change due to alien plant naturalizations.
Location
Malesian phytogeographic region, incl...
The early Cambrian Kylinxia zhangi occupies a pivotal position in arthropod evolution, branching from the euarthropod stem lineage between radiodonts (Anomalocaris and relatives) and "great-appendage" arthropods.1,2 Its combination of appendage and exoskeletal features is viewed as uniquely bridging the morphologies of so-called "lower" and "upper"...
This chapter is part of an architectural monograph and looks at the unsustainable relationship of cities with nature, as viewed through the lens of rivers. A contribution to the Cave Bureau's exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark: https://louisiana.dk/en/exhibition/cave_bureau/
Bradoriid and phosphatocopid arthropods occur throughout the Cambrian and Tremadoc of Britain, most abundantly in the Welsh Borderland, Warwickshire and South Wales. Families Beyrichonidae, Bradoriidae, Falitidae, Hesslandonidae, Hipponicharionidae, Svealutidae and Vestrogothiidae are represented. The total known fauna comprises 15 genera and 30 sp...
Study of a subsurface core (named F688) from northern Indiana provides integrated data sets linking Katian chronostratigraphic records of the Appalachian and Midcontinent basins. The F688 core shows a variety of shallow- and deep-water facies containing numerous, well-preserved and zonally significant fossil species and diagnostic chemostratigraphi...
What does it mean for our species—or for any species—to be successful? Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implications examines the concept of human success from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with contributions from leading paleobiologists, anthropologists, geologists, philosophers of science, and ethicists. It tells the tale...
Swindles et al. (2023) correctly point out that there are many conceptions of the ‘Anthropocene’ in use, and they argue that this flexibility in terminology is desirable. We agree that the multiple uses of this term have stimulated much scholarly debate, but we contend that precision in terminology is far more desirable than vagueness, and promotes...
What does it mean for our species—or for any species—to be successful? Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implications examines the concept of human success from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with contributions from leading paleobiologists, anthropologists, geologists, philosophers of science, and ethicists. It tells the tale...
Merritts et al. (2023) misrepresent Paul Crutzen’s Anthropocene concept as encompassing all significant anthropogenic impacts, extending back many millennia. Crutzen’s definition reflects massively enhanced, much more recent human impacts that transformed the Earth System away from the stability of Holocene conditions.
His concept of an epoch (henc...
Major regional gaps exist in the reporting and accessibility of naturalized plant species distribution data, especially within Southeast Asia. Here, we present the Malesian Naturalized Alien Flora database (MalNAF), the first standardized island-group level checklist of naturalized vascular plant species for the Malesian phytogeographical region. W...
A San Francisco Estuary core was analysed at high resolution to assess its component stratigraphic signatures of the Anthropocene in the form of non-native species, Hg, spheroidal carbonaceous particles, δ ¹³ C org , δ ¹⁵ N, radiogenic materials, and heavy metals. Time series analysis of the core using Ti data provides a chronology to depth 167 cm...
The first detailed, systematic record of Silurian ostracod crustaceans from Vietnam is presented. Ostracods from the upper Silurian (upper Ludlowlower Pridoli) Si Ka Formation of Ha Giang Province, northern Vietnam comprise ca. 10 species, including two new species of hollinoideans, two beyrichioideans, three species of eridostracine, at least one...
Rock successions in Britain and Ireland, and more especially those in North Wales, were instrumental in the founding and naming of the Ordovician System, and the Anglo-Welsh series established both initially and subsequently were used widely as a standard for Ordovician chronostratigraphy. Although now largely superseded in the global scheme of ser...
Event stratigraphy is used to help characterise the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic concept, based on analogous deep-time events, for which we provide a novel categorization. Events in stratigraphy are distinct from extensive, time-transgressive ‘episodes’ – such as the global, highly diachronous record of anthropogenic change, termed here an...
Event stratigraphy is used to help characterise the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic concept, based on analogous deep-time events, for which we provide a novel categorization. Events in stratigraphy are distinct from extensive, time-transgressive ‘episodes’ – such as the global, highly diachronous record of anthropogenic change, termed here an...
Event stratigraphy is used to help characterise the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic concept, based on analogous deep-time events, for which we provide a novel categorization. Events in stratigraphy are distinct from extensive, time-transgressive ‘episodes’ – such as the global, highly diachronous record of anthropogenic change, termed here an...
We examine three distinctive biostratigraphic signatures of humans associated with hunting and gathering , landscape domestication and globalization. All three signatures have significant fossil records of regional importance that can be correlated interregionally and help describe the developing pattern of human expansion and appropriation of reso...
The extensive array of mid-20 th century stratigraphic event signals associated with the 'Great Acceleration' enables precise and unambiguous recognition of the Anthropocene as an epoch/series within the Geological Time Scale. A mid-20 th century inception is consistent with Earth System science analysis in which the Anthropocene term and concept a...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
The Anthropocene defined as an epoch/series within the Geological Time Scale, and with an isochronous inception in the mid-20th century, would both utilize the rich array of stratigraphic signals associated with the Great Acceleration and align with Earth System science analysis from where the term Anthropocene originated. It would be stratigraphic...
This is an excerpt from our book (Chapter 3), The Cosmic Oasis. The book explores Earth's biosphere, past and present, and emphasises its special place in the cosmos. It examines ideas for a more sustainable future, and the ways in which life might flourish if humans live more sympathetically with it.
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
This title explores the abundance and complexity of life on Earth, which—as we discover more of other planets—appears as a true oasis in the cosmos. Despite its diversity, life forms little more than a veneer on the planet, albeit one that has hugely influenced its climate and environment. Earth and its biosphere have profoundly changed through mor...
Major regional gaps exist in the reporting and accessibility of naturalized plant species distribution data, especially within Asia. Here, we present the Malesian Naturalized Alien Flora database (MalNAF), the first standardized island-group level checklist of naturalized vascular plant species for the Malesian phytogeographical region. We used Mal...
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M. (2022), Klimat Ziemi od archaiku po antropocen, w: Jasikowska, K., Pałasz, M. (red.), Za pięć dwunasta koniec świata. Kryzys klimatyczno-ekologiczny głosem wielu nauk. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, s. 33–57. za512.uj.edu.pl
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Koncentrujemy się tu na porównaniu współczesnych zmi...
Extinction, coupled with many other biological signals, is a major geological indicator of the Anthropocene. The introduction of non-native species, deforestation, depletion of fisheries and modification of coastal environments, domestication of animals, and the reconfiguration of terrestrial ecosystems are all evident in the geological record and...
Altered Earth aims to get the Anthropocene right in three senses. With essays by leading scientists, it highlights the growing consensus that our planet entered a dangerous new state in the mid-twentieth century. Second, it gets the Anthropocene right in human terms, bringing together a range of leading authors to explore, in fiction and non-fictio...
We describe Fengzhengia mamingae gen. et sp. nov., a new euarthropod from the lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Lagerstätte, Southwest China. Fengzhengia mamingae possesses prominent frontal appendages, stalked, circular eyes, a simple, sub-triangular head shield, and a trunk with 15 tergites, the anterior nine each bearing a single med...
Bushizheia yangi, a euarthropod from the early Cambrian Chengjiang biota of China, possesses a fully arthrodised body and limbs. The morphology of the frontal appendages of B. yangi bears a resemblance to the ’great appendage’ of radiodonts, a morphologically and ecologically diverse group of arthropods that played diverse roles in early Palaeozoic...
The fossil record of terrestrialization documents notable shifts in the environmental and physiological tolerances of many animal and plant groups. However, for certain significant components of modern freshwater and terrestrial environments, the transition out of marine settings remains largely unconstrained. Ostracod crustaceans occupy an excepti...
The Mississippi River maintains commercial and societal networks of the USA along its >3700 km length. It has accumulated a fluvial sedimentary succession over 80 million years. Through the last 11,700 years of the Holocene Epoch, the wild river shaped the landscape, models of which have become classic in geological studies of ancient river strata....
The first plant microfossil assemblage from the Si Ka Formation of the Song Cau Group, northern Vietnam is reported. It is composed of cryptospores in dyads and tetrads, trilete spores, tubular remains consisting of an association of smooth, banded, and externally thickened tubes, and cuticle-like fragments. The biostratigraphic assemblage of sporo...
Marine ecosystems with a diverse range of animal groups became established during the early Cambrian (~541 to ~509 Ma). However, Earth’s environmental parameters and palaeogeography in this interval of major macro-evolutionary change remain poorly constrained. Here, we test contrasting hypotheses of continental configuration and climate that have p...
The Antarctic Peninsula’s Pacific margin is one of the best studied sectors of the Antarctic continental margin. Since the 1990s, several research cruises have targeted the continental rise with geophysical surveys, conventional coring and deep-sea drilling. The previous studies highlighted the potential of large sediment drifts on the rise as high...
The term Anthropocene initially emerged from the Earth System science community in
the early 2000s, denoting a concept that the Holocene Epoch has terminated as a consequence of human activities. First associated with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, it was then more closely linked
with the Great Acceleration in industrialization and globali...
[https://zenodo.org/record/4506617#.YN3VJBMzaCf]
These files contain the necessary data and R scripts for the manuscript "Quantitative comparison of geological data and climate simulations constrains early Cambrian geography and climate". The files include the NetCDF output of early Cambrian global climate simulations conducted using the coupled o...
Micro-CT scanning of the Cambrian euarthropod Chuandianella ovata reveals unprecedented three-dimensional soft-part details. It has an elongate uniramous antennule and a short uniramous second appendage, followed by ten homonomous biramous appendages, each comprising a short paddle-shaped exopod and a unique feather-like endopod with at least 27 po...
The Earth's climate has stayed within a window allowing continuous habitability by living organisms for approaching 4 billion years, even though significant changes have occurred to major climate controls such solar energy flux and the geography of land and sea; key features allowing this likely include silicate weathering as a planetary thermostat...
Stratigraphy provides insights into the evolution and dynamics of the Earth System over its long history. With recent developments in Earth System science, changes in Earth System dynamics can now be observed directly and projected into the near future. An integration of the two approaches provides powerful insights into the nature and significance...
Over the past century, the total material wealth of humanity has been enhanced. However, in the twenty-first century, we face scarcity in critical resources, the degradation of ecosystem services, and the erosion of the planet’s capability to absorb our wastes. Equity issues remain stubbornly difficult to solve. This situation is novel in its speed...
Two new graptolite assemblages are identified from discrete intervals within the Phu Ngu Formation, Na Ri District, Bac Kan Province, north-east Vietnam. The graptolites occur in laminated mud/siltstones thought to be distal turbidite deposits. A low-diversity diplograptid sensu lato assemblage occurs in mud-rich layers that are interlaminated with...
This chapter relates the two overarching themes of the book – climate change and the ocean – through the lens of the Anthropocene and explores the impact on the development of the law of the sea within a broader framework of international law, including the climate change regime. We first explain the emergence and the content of the Anthropocene co...
Four species of myodocope ostracod are documented from the Silurian Ludlow Series of the Aburtkan gorge on the southern slope of Dzhalpak Mountain, Uzbekistan: namely, Parabolbozoe bohemica (Barrande, 1872), Bolbozoe anomala Barrande, 1872, Silurocypridina calva Perrier, Vannier and Siveter, 2011 and Richteria migrans (Barrande, 1872). These specie...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Supplementary material to Syvitski et al. 2020, see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344685697_Extraordinary_human_energy_consumption_and_resultant_geological_impacts_beginning_around_1950_CE_initiated_the_proposed_Anthropocene_Epoch
Growth in fundamental drivers—energy use, economic productivity and population—can provide quantitative indications of the proposed boundary between the Holocene Epoch and the Anthropocene. Human energy expenditure in the Anthropocene, ~22 zetajoules (ZJ), exceeds that across the prior 11,700 years of the Holocene (~14.6 ZJ), largely through combus...
Here, we report the earliest fossil record to our knowledge of surface fouling by aggregates of small vermiform, encrusting and annulated tubular organisms associated with a mobile, nektonic host, the enigmatic Cambrian animal Vetulicola. Our material is from the exceptionally preserved early Cambrian (Epoch 2, Age 3), Chengjiang biota of Yunnan Pr...
There is comprehensive, complementary sedimentological, faunal and paleogeographic data to indicate that myodocopid ostracods invaded the water column in the Silurian, in the latest Wenlock and especially the Ludlow Epoch, resulting in the pioneer pelagic ostracod fauna. As detailed herein, there is now also considerable paleobiological evidence, f...
Bushizheia yangi gen. et sp. nov. is a euarthropod species from the Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Lagerstätte, Southwest China. Sclerotised dorsal terg-ites, sclerotisation of post-frontal head limb appendages, and no isolated cephalic sclerite support the euarthropod affinities of B. yangi gen. et sp. nov. However, the frontal head limbs...