Jan Zalasiewicz’s research while affiliated with University of Leicester and other places

Damianos provides his views on the significance of the March 2024 decision by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to reject the proposal of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), the body we represent, to formalize the Anthropocene as a series/epoch of the Geological Time Scale. He draws upon ‘four years of ethnographic observation’ of the AWG, over which time this body provided him with access to its meetings and discussions. Given this access, the numerous misrepresentations within his article warrant redress. Ultimately, his conclusions mimic claims of influential figures within the governing bodies of the stratigraphic process: that the AWG were attempting to formalize the Anthropocene for political reasons and subvert the process through use of the media, and that the proposed definition was based upon claims about the future and not the past geological record. We refute those accusations, and emphasize that the proposed Anthropocene epoch, based on scrupulous and detailed analysis of the stratigraphic record, demonstrates striking and transformative Earth System change driven by the mid-20th century ‘Great Acceleration’ of human activities.

Plain Language Summary The extraordinary fossil fuel‐driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid‐twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for a new interval of geologic time lies in the radical shift in the geologic record that marks this “Great Acceleration” of the human enterprise. The rejection of a proposal to define the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch with a “golden spike” in varved sediments from Crawford Lake, Canada, means that we officially we still live in the Holocene, when in practical terms we do not. Formal recognition of the Anthropocene will acknowledge the facts supporting global warming and many other planetary changes that are irreversible on geologic time scales, aligning the Earth Sciences with geologic, planetary and societal reality.

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 undetermined retiolitid, that indicate the Oktavites spiralis Biozone (mid-late Telychian, Late Llandovery, Silurian) age. The graptolites are associated with organic-walled microfossils, some containing internal bodies. The combination of lithology, preservation and low thermal maturity seem to exclude a British origin. The closest comparison is with Silurian chert pebbles in Miocene and Pleistocene gravels in central Germany, thought to be derived from bedrock in the Frankenwald region of Thuringia. A conjectured natural transport vector for this pebble involves drainage along the proto-Rhine system flowing into early/mid Pleistocene North Sea deltaic/marine deposits, with subsequent glacial transport to Norfolk. The possibility of an anthropogenic vector is also considered, but dismissed.

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 activity on the city and its waterways. Reflecting on the walk, our starting point is to problematize how a city organizes and manages public value and what actually constitutes public value. In this, we develop a new definition, “New Public Value for the Anthropocene Epoch” (NPVA), which expands the notion of public value through the questions: “who” is it valuable to do things for, beyond humans and economic actors, building on a relational epistemology to incorporate the planet and its biosphere; and “what” is valuable to do, in order to ensure the inclusion of social, environmental, and cultural values alongside economic values. We conclude by arguing that NPVA is organized across scales in a manner that embeds global attentiveness toward local ecosystems solutions to drive the global response to the environmental crisis we all face.

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 in core CRA23-BC-1F-B at the base of the dark lamina in a varve deposited in 1952 CE, at the level where the primary marker shows a rapid increase in 239+240Pu concentrations (coinciding with a globally recognisable, isochronous signal of the first above-ground thermonuclear tests). Secondary markers, determined in precisely correlated core closely adjacent to the proposed GSSP host, include a marked increase in 14C values and in spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs), increased heavy metal concentrations, a decline in δ15N values, a marked change in phytoplankton assemblages and declines in elm (Ulmus) pollen and in non-arboreal pollen. The submission also provides descriptions of three proposed Standard Auxiliary Boundary Stratotypes (SABSs), in cores extracted from marine anoxic sediments of Beppu Bay (Japan), in Sihailongwan Maar Lake (China) and in the Śnieżka Peatland (Poland) and eight reference sections located in cores extracted from marine anoxic sediments in the Baltic Sea, from coral bioherms off Australia and in the Gulf of Mexico, from an Antarctic ice core, from San Francisco Estuary and nearby lake (USA), in a speleothem from northern Italy and a section in urban anthropogenic deposits in Austria. This ubiquity of signals verifies that the Anthropocene can be widely delineated as a sharply distinctive chronostratigraphic unit in diverse terrestrial and marine depositional environments, and reflects a major Earth System change that will have geologically lasting consequences.

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 Anthropocene as series/epoch, terminating the Holocene Series/Epoch with a single Crawfordian stage/age. The GSSP should be located at the level where the primary marker shows a rapid increase in 239+240Pu concentrations (coinciding with a globally recognisable, isochronous signal of the first above-ground thermonuclear tests). The stratigraphic signature of the Anthropocene comprises: a) lithostratigraphic signals, including many new proxies, such as synthetic inorganic crystalline mineral-like compounds, microplastics, fly ash and black carbon, in addition to direct modification through human terraforming of landscape and indirect influences on sedimentary facies through drivers such as climate change; b) chemostratigraphic signals including inorganic and organic contaminants and isotopic shifts of carbon and nitrogen; c) fallout from above-ground nuclear weapons testing; d) stratigraphic effects of climate warming, sea-level rise and ocean acidification; and e) biostratigraphic signals, especially range and abundance changes characterised by unprecedented rates and extents of non-native species introductions, increased population and species extinction and extirpation rates. These correlative markers are present in many kinds of geological deposits around the world. This ubiquity of signals verifies that the Anthropocene can be widely delineated as a sharply distinctive chronostratigraphic unit in diverse terrestrial and marine depositional environments, and reflects a major Earth System change that will have geologically lasting consequences. As background, the Anthropocene was suggested as a new epoch by Paul Crutzen in 2000. The AWG was established in 2009 by the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy to examine the evidence for the potential inclusion of the Anthropocene in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC) and, if warranted, to formulate a definition and proposal. Various suggested start dates were considered, and the mid-20th century was found to be the only one associated with an extensive array of effectively globally isochronous geological markers reflecting the ‘Great Acceleration’ of population, industrialization and globalization. Alternative interpretations of the Anthropocene, including as an informal ‘event’, were considered in detail by the AWG and found to be inconsistent with the stratigraphic evidence.