Anthropocene Working Group Research Articles

The Global Humanization Event (GHE)

The recent rejection of the “Anthropocene Series/Epoch,” as proposed by the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), has reopened discussion about the Anthropocene as a geological event. This event has been referred to as the “Anthropocene Event” (AE) or the “Anthropogenic Modification Episode” (AME). This essay briefly discusses these terms and concepts, and proposed to use new terms such as “Earth System Humanization Event” (ESHE) or “Global Humanization Event” (GHE), which are more specific and terminologically more consistent with the already defined geological events.

Dating the Dawn of the Anthropocene

Abstract This article provides indepth insight into the debate (based on stratigraphic findings) as to the exact date that Earth entered the Anthropocene Epoch. Generally, in Human and Social Sciences, the date of the boundary is paid less attention than the systemic shifts resulting from it. (There have been a number of publications on our surpassing of the planet’s limits, and passing of the point of no return.) However, it is important to understand this debate based on stratigraphic data, because sooner or later, the International Union of Geological Sciences will amend the geological timescale to include the Anthropocene – even if, to date, the process of formal definition has been interrupted by the negative vote on 5 March 2024 of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) after a positive vote in 2023 by the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) proposing to date the onset of the Anthropocene in 1950 (with a “golden nail” in the Crawford lake beds). In future, almost all the world’s students will learn the date when we entered it. This article explores each of the possible dates when stratigraphic data suggest the Anthropocene may have started. This should hand tomorrow’s teachers the keys to understand what may sometimes seem an obscure expert debate.

Increased black carbon (soot) accumulation during the Anthropocene in a less-developed region of Xinjiang, northwestern China

Records of environmental changes at regional or continental scales in less-developed regions may aid clarification of the onset of the Anthropocene. A sediment core was collected from Bosten Lake in Xinjiang Province, northwestern China, to investigate historical variations of combustion indicators of black carbon (BC), char and soot and to reflect human influences over the past 150 years. Results show that a rapid increase in soot fluxes (over 1.5 times on average) happened after 1950, consistent with the Great Acceleration period as well as establishment of the People's Republic of China, following a rapidly developing economy. Soot flux peaked around the 1960, coincident with wasteland reclamation in Xinjiang Province, decreasing after the year 2000 owing to environmental protection requirements such as desulfurization. Average char/soot ratios before and after 1950 were 0.56 and 0.37, respectively, such low ratios suggest a predominant contribution of soot from long-range transport, while the industrialization in China since the 1950 s may have caused further reduction in the ratios. Sedimentary soot deposition flux in less-developed areas thus recorded key anthropogenic activities occurring in China and supports the onset of the Anthropocene in the mid-20th century, as proposed by the Anthropocene Working Group.

The Anthropocene is best understood as an ongoing, intensifying, diachronous event

Current debate on the status and character of the Anthropocene is focussed on whether this interval of geological time should be designated as a formal unit of epoch/series rank in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart/Geological Time Scale, or whether it is more appropriate for it to be considered as an informal ‘event’ comparable in significance with other major transformative events in deeper geological time. The case for formalizing the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphical unit with a base at approximately 1950 CE is being developed by the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Here we outline the alternative position and explain why the time‐transgressive nature of human impact on global environmental systems that is reflected in the recent stratigraphical record means that the Anthropocene is better seen not as a series/epoch with a fixed lower boundary, but rather as an unfolding, transforming and intensifying geological event.

An anthropology of impossible futures

This guest editorial explores the intricate relationship between anthropology and the concept of impossible futures, focusing on the global push towards electric vehicles (EVs) and the lithium energy assemblage. Drawing inspiration from a lecture by palaeobiologist Mark Williams, a member of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), the author reflects on the Anthropocene epoch and the human‐caused transformations of the earth. It examines the European Green Deal's impact on the automotive industry, the global struggle for lithium and the paradoxes of green technology investments. It questions the feasibility of the envisioned future, emphasizing the contradictions within global capitalism and the potential futility of climate change mitigation efforts. The author calls for a reorientation in anthropological research, focusing on novel forms of unity, solidarity, justice and interspecies bonds in the face of seemingly impossible conditions. It concludes with a contemplation of anthropology's role in translating and understanding social life in the context of unattainable futures without losing sight of the discipline's contested past and inherent hope.

A geological perspective of plastic pollution

The Anthropocene, the most recent geologic time division, marks humanity's profound impact on Earth. Amidst debates, the Anthropocene Working Group recommended its inclusion in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC). This period is characterized by the mid-20th century Great Acceleration Event Array (GAEA), which includes widespread presence of pollutants such as radionuclides, organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, and plastic production. The Anthropocene concept should raise public awareness of these threats, with plastic pollution being a primary concern. Plastics are now pervasive and serve as a marker for the Anthropocene Epoch or Age. Understanding their entry into the geological record requires considering the “Plastic Geological Cycle,” which encompasses extraction, production, use, disposal, degradation, fragmentation, accumulation, and lithification. This cycle reveals the transformation of plastics into new forms of pollution characteristic of the Anthropocene. With 91 % of discarded plastics never recycled, they accumulate in the environment and enter the geological record through processes like photodegradation, thermal stress, and biodegradation. The proposed Plasticene stage within the Anthropocene is defined by the post-World War II surge in plastic production and their incorporation into sedimentary processes and rocks. The study of plastics in the geologic record serves as a warning of their negative impacts and highlights the urgency of addressing plastic pollution for a sustainable future.

A recent Cannabis pollen increase on the Iberian Pyrenees

The continuous, varved and absolutely dated sedimentary record of Lake Montcortès (Iberian Pyrenees) has provided evidence for a distinct and characteristic 20th century (1980s) increase in Cannabis pollen (20C) that persists today. This event was coeval with the geographical shift of the hemp production center in the Iberian Peninsula from east to northeast (where Lake Montcortès lies), which was accompanied by a significant production increase. This increasing trend was fostered by the renewed interest of the paper industry in hemp and was promoted by the onset of European Union subsidies to hemp cultivation. Illegal cannabis crops could have also contributed to the Cannabis pollen increase, but sound evidence is still lacking. These preliminary conclusions should be reinforced by increasing the resolution of the current palynological record and modeling the dispersal of Cannabis pollen around the Montcortès region. More similar high-resolution records are needed to verify the geographical extent of the 20C event. Additionally, Lake Montcortès varved sediments are proposed as a suitable candidate to characterize the onset of the “Anthropocene” epoch (mid-20th century), as currently defined by the Anthropocene Working Group.

Soil Sustainability in the Anthropocene

A new geological epoch—the Anthropocene—was voted by the 34-member Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) to mark the profound ways in which humans have altered our planet [...]

Evidence and experiment: Curating contexts of Anthropocene geology

Together with research teams from around the world, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) has been meticulously quantifying and scrutinizing the global stratigraphic imprint of human activities, the results of which are gathered in this thematic collection of papers in The Anthropocene Review. How can such empirical research, which so impressively articulates the end of a relatively stable Earth System in the mid-20th century, inform our ways of understanding and responding to the planetary crisis that the geological samples quietly represent? In this afterword to the collection we report and reflect on the joint undertaking of the AWG, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science to bring geoscientific evidence, cultural experimentation and historical contextualization together in a shared public framework.

Annual-scale assessment of mid-20th century anthropogenic impacts on the algal ecology of Crawford Lake, Ontario, Canada.

Meromictic Crawford Lake, located in SW Ontario, Canada is characterized by varved sediments, making it suitable for high-resolution paleoecological studies. Freeze cores, the only coring method available that reliably preserves the fragile laminations representative of seasonal deposition in the lake, were used to document siliceous diatom and chrysophyte community structure at an annual resolution from 1930-1990CE. Stratigraphically constrained cluster analysis identified major assemblage changes that are believed to have been caused by local, regional and possibly global anthropogenic impacts. The assemblage changes within the siliceous algae are attributed to regional weather and increased industrial emissions and related effects of acid deposition on the lake's catchment associated with the Great Acceleration -the massive economic, industrial, and demographic expansion beginning in the mid-20th century. Observed increases in spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) in varved lake sediment dating to the early 1950s record rapidly expanding steel production without emission controls around 30 km upwind of the lake. The findings reported here reflect major changes in earth systems that the Anthropocene Working Group recommends for a proposed epoch to be termed the Anthropocene, providing support for the laminated sediments from Crawford Lake as a potential Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP).

Candidate sites and other reference sections for the Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point of the Anthropocene series

We review and compare proposals for 12 reference sections submitted to the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, of which one will be recommended as the Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) to define the base of the Anthropocene as a series within the Geological Time Scale. The sites span five continents and are located in diverse environments, with all but one sampled by coring. Many sites show annually resolved laminae (here considered optimal for GSSP selection) that can be independently dated radiometrically to confirm a complete succession over the critical interval. An extensive range of proxies, documenting profound human modification of the Earth System at around the mid-20th century interval, has been analysed. Airborne signals (e.g. radioisotopes, fly ash, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes) provide the most widespread and near-isochronous proxies, applicable across most environments. Additional means of correlation include the appearance of microplastics and persistent organic pollutants, and shifts in heavy metal concentrations and lead isotope ratios. Assemblage changes of microfossils (and some macrofossils) in marine, estuarine and lake settings reflect environmental changes and biological introductions. These systematic and comprehensive datasets, with correlation established between sections, provide the basis for a proposal to formalize the Anthropocene.

The Cost of Climate Change Heightened Sexual and Gender-based Violence: A Challenge for International Law

There is a reality of creeping adverse effects of climate change. The human imprint on it has been affirmed by various global processes including 21 May 2019 recognition by the Anthropocene Working Group. It has emerged as a planetary crisis. By 2050 climate change could see 4% of global annual economic output lost to the tune of $23 trillion and may hit many poorer parts of the world disproportionately. Though entire populations are affected by climate change, women and girls suffer the most. Due to their traditional roles, women are heavily dependent on natural resources. As a consequence of natural disasters and during Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-22, women have faced heightened risks to different forms of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). They suffer from a lack of protection, privacy, and mental trauma. Effects of climate change results in the feminization and intensification of vulnerability of women and girls. As there is double victimization of women both as human beings and because of their gender. Growing evidence suggests role of climate change heightened violence against women and girls. There is no specific international legal instrument dealing with SGBV against women during and after the climate change induced disasters. The texts of the three specific climate change treaties (1992 UNFCCC, 1997 Kyoto Protocol and 2015 Paris Agreement) do not address this crucial aspect. It has been given attention only through the recent decisions of the Conference of the Parties (COP). Due to serious psychological and bodily harm SGBV causes to women, it needs to be explicitly factored in respective international legal instruments on climate change and disasters. There are ignorance, denials and lack of adequate attention by scholars and decision-makers in the field to address adverse effects of climate change in causing heightened violence against women and girls. Hence, this study makes a modest effort to deduce and analyze –from scattered initiatives, scholarly literature in different areas, existing international legal instruments and intergovernmental processes – the growing causal relationship between climate change and SGBV especially against women and girls as well as the phenomenal cost so as to suggest a way out for our better common future. It is a new challenge for international law that needs to be duly addressed in a timely manner.

Public-minded reflections from the Anthropocene Working Group meeting in Germany

Public-minded reflections from the Anthropocene Working Group meeting in Germany

Law and Geology for the Anthropocene: Toward an Ethics of Encounter

The Anthropocene has been observed as an opportunity to generate new legal imaginaries capable of revising incumbent assumptions of legal and political thought. What opportunities do such ambitions afford for communication between geological and legal thought? Responding to Birrell & Matthews attempt to ‘re-story a law for, rather than of, the Anthropocene,’ I wish to describe some ways in which the Anthropocene Working Group, who are pursuing formalisation of the Anthropocene as an official geological unit, are involved in a similar exercise of re-storying geology. The Anthropocene theme is brought to bear as a geological reality through material practices of measurement and correlation, as well as through the invocation of previous judgements of the evaluative committees associated with the formalisation of new geological unit. This effort amounts to a redefinition of the practices of geological observation, i.e. what counts as geologically relevant and why. In keeping with the theme of an ‘ethics of encounter’, as encouraged by Birrell and Matthews, this article suggests that the AWG’s effort provides a model with which the elaboration of ‘laws for the Anthropocene’ might correspond.

Transition of Natural Pedology into Man Made Anthropedogenesis through Anthropocene Epoch- A review

The renowned science of pedology, which commenced in the nineteenth century as a study of natural processes in soil formation, is adapting to the demands of the Anthropocene, the geologic period during which planet Earth and its soils change from natural to humannatural systems. The term Anthropocene comes from the Greek words anthropos, which means "man," and cene, which means "new." Within the Geological Time Scale, the 'Anthropocene' is not yet a formally recognised geological unit. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) is working on a proposal to codify the word for discussion. Anthropedogenic processes are characterised as artificial settings that dramatically alter natural soil formation processes or causes. In any given setting, human actions alter one or more of the five soil-forming factors. Given that humans differ from other organisms in that they purposefully manage soils independently of other soil-forming variables, and because they employ technology to affect soils on a far larger scale than other organisms. Humans' collective impacts on soil development have been categorised as a sixth soil-forming component. The basic science of pedology, the study of natural soil formation, is evolving into the science of anthropedogenesis in the Anthropocene. The future of pedology is a resurgent discipline known as anthropedology, which draws on previous pedology but moves from "human as outsider" to "human as insider." In other words, in pedology, the human must transform from a soil-disturbing to a soil-forming agent.

Indigenous knowledge and the shackles of wilderness

The environmental crises currently gripping the Earth have been codified in a new proposed geological epoch: the Anthropocene. This epoch, according to the Anthropocene Working Group, began in the mid-20th century and reflects the “great acceleration” that began with industrialization in Europe [J. Zalasiewicz et al., Anthropocene 19, 55–60 (2017)]. Ironically, European ideals of protecting a pristine “wilderness,” free from the damaging role of humans, is still often heralded as the antidote to this human-induced crisis [J. E. M. Watson et al., Nature, 563, 27–30 (2018)]. Despite decades of critical engagement by Indigenous and non-Indigenous observers, large international nongovernmental organizations, philanthropists, global institutions, and nation-states continue to uphold the notion of pristine landscapes as wilderness in conservation ideals and practices. In doing so, dominant global conservation policy and public perceptions still fail to recognize that Indigenous and local peoples have long valued, used, and shaped “high-value” biodiverse landscapes. Moreover, the exclusion of people from many of these places under the guise of wilderness protection has degraded their ecological condition and is hastening the demise of a number of highly valued systems. Rather than denying Indigenous and local peoples’ agency, access rights, and knowledge in conserving their territories, we draw upon a series of case studies to argue that wilderness is an inappropriate and dehumanizing construct, and that Indigenous and community conservation areas must be legally recognized and supported to enable socially just, empowering, and sustainable conservation across scale.

Role of Climate Change in Exacerbating Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Women: A New Challenge for International Law

The advent of climate change era has been affirmed by various global processes including 21 May 2019 recognition by the Anthropocene Working Group of ‘human impact’ in bringing profound alterations on planet earth. It has emerged as the predominant ‘world problematique’. Though entire populations are affected by climate change, women and girls suffer the most. Due to their traditional roles, women are heavily dependent on natural resources. As already seen, as a consequence of natural disasters and during Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21, women have faced heightened real-life challenges specially being vulnerable to different forms of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). They suffer from a lack of protection, privacy, and mental trauma. Women are exposed to SGBV due to weak or absence of social, economic, political security and the culture of widespread impunity to the perpetrators. There is double victimization of women both as human beings and because of their gender. Effect of SGBV is highly injurious and perpetual. A close study of four main areas of international law does not yield any international legal instrument that deals with SGBV against women during and after the climate change induced disasters. This is more ominous when growing evidence suggests role of climate change in exacerbation of SGBV against women and girls. Even texts of the three specific climate change treaties (1992 UNFCCC, 1997 Kyoto Protocol and 2015 Paris Agreement) do not address this issue. It has been given attention only through the decisions of the Conference of the Parties in recent years. Due to serious psychological and bodily harm SGBV causes to women, it needs to be explicitly factored in respective international legal instruments on climate change and disasters. Amidst ignorance, denials and lack of adequate attention as regards impact of climate change in exacerbating SGBV against women and girls from the scholars and decision-makers in the field, this study makes a modest effort to deduce and analyze – from scattered initiatives, scholarly literature in different areas, existing international legal instruments and intergovernmental processes – the growing causal relationship between climate change and SGBV against women and girls so as to suggest a way out for our better common future. It is a new challenge for international law that needs to be duly addressed in a timely manner.

Pink Chicken Project: Coloring All Chickens Pink With A Gene Drive - Re-occupying The Rock Strata

The Pink Chicken Project is an ambiguous proposal to use a recently invented biotechnology of accelerated gene propagation, called “Gene Drive”, to genetically modify all chickens in the world, colouring their bones and feathers pink. Being the world's most common bird, the bones of the 60 billion chickens that are killed every year leave a distinct trace in the rock strata (the earth's crust), suggested by geologists from the Anthropocene Working Group to be a prime identifier of our time. This intervention would thereby modify the future fossil record, coloring the geological trace of humankind, pink! Pink is a symbolic color, an opposition to the current global power dynamics, that enable and aggravate the anthropocentric violence forced upon the non-human world. A story somewhere between utopia and dystopia, the project attempts to redirect focus to the underlying ethical and political issues that shape our relationship to nonhuman beings.

The Anthropocene: Comparing Its Meaning in Geology (Chronostratigraphy) with Conceptual Approaches Arising in Other Disciplines

AbstractThe 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 globalization from the 1950s that fundamentally modified physical, chemical, and biological signals in geological archives. Since 2009, the Anthropocene has been evaluated by the Anthropocene Working Group, tasked with examining it for potential inclusion in the Geological Time Scale. Such inclusion requires a precisely defined chronostratigraphic and geochronological unit with a globally synchronous base and inception, with the mid‐twentieth century being geologically optimal. This reflects an Earth System state in which human activities have become predominant drivers of modifications to the stratigraphic record, making it clearly distinct from the Holocene. However, more recently, the term Anthropocene has also become used for different conceptual interpretations in diverse scholarly fields, including the environmental and social sciences and humanities. These are often flexibly interpreted, commonly without reference to the geological record, and diachronous in time; they often extend much further back in time than the mid‐twentieth century. These broader conceptualizations encompass wide ranges and levels of human impacts and interactions with the environment. Here, we clarify what the Anthropocene is in geological terms and compare the proposed geological (chronostratigraphic) definition with some of these broader interpretations and applications of the term “Anthropocene,” showing both their overlaps and differences.

Plutonium in coral archives: A good primary marker for an Anthropocene type section

While we officially live in the Holocene epoch, global warming and many other impacts of global change have led to the proposal and wide adoption of the Anthropocene to define the present geological epoch. The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) established that it should be treated as a formal stratigraphic unit, demonstrated by a reference level commonly known as “golden spike”, still under discussion. Here we show that the onset of bomb-derived plutonium recorded in two banded massive corals from the Caribbean Sea is consistent (1955–1956 CE), so sites far from nuclear testing grounds are potentially suitable to host a type section of the Anthropocene. Coastal coral demonstration sites are feasible, could foster economic development, and may serve as focal points for scientific dissemination and environmental education.