Abstract
A recently published analysis by Lewis and Maslin (Lewis SL and Maslin MA (2015) Defining the Anthropocene. Nature 519: 171–180) has identified two new potential horizons for the Holocene−Anthropocene boundary: 1610 (associated with European colonization of the Americas), or 1964 (the peak of the excess radiocarbon signal arising from atom bomb tests). We discuss both of these novel suggestions, and consider that there is insufficient stratigraphic basis for the former, whereas placing the latter at the peak of the signal rather than at its inception does not follow normal stratigraphical practice. Wherever the boundary is eventually placed, it should be optimized to reflect stratigraphical evidence with the least possible ambiguity.
Highlights
Since the initial proposal of the Anthropocene as a new interval of geological time (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000; Crutzen, 2002), the term has become widely used, both within the natural sciences (e.g. Williams et al, 2011 and Waters et al, 2014, and references therein) and those of the social sciences, humanities and arts (e.g. Vidas, 2010, 2011, 2014; Latour, 2015; Chakrabarty, 2015).It is currently under analysis as a potential formal addition to the Geological Time Scale
Lewis and Maslin cite the analysis by Neukom et al (2014) of climate in the last millennium in indicating, within the Little Ice Age, ‘a relatively synchronous cold event noted in geologic deposits worldwide’
The alternative 1964 date suggested by Lewis and Maslin (2015) is, in contrast to the dip, based rather upon a peak in atmospheric radiocarbon recorded in annual tree‐rings from pines in the park by Niepołomice Castle, Poland (Rakowski et al, 2013)
Summary
Since the initial proposal of the Anthropocene as a new interval of geological time (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000; Crutzen, 2002), the term has become widely used, both within the natural sciences (e.g. Williams et al, 2011 and Waters et al, 2014, and references therein) and those of the social sciences, humanities and arts (e.g. Vidas, 2010, 2011, 2014; Latour, 2015; Chakrabarty, 2015).It is currently under analysis as a potential formal addition to the Geological Time Scale. A recently published Perspective in Nature (Lewis and Maslin, 2015) advanced two other dates, 1610 and 1964, to potentially begin the Anthropocene, with the first of these being favoured.
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