"Anthropocene" is Too Modest to Describe Human Earth Impact

Fossils-physical remains of an organism

Defining the Cenozoic-Anthropozoic or “C-A Boundary

Event”

Trace fossils-behavioral remains of an organism

Treptichnus pedum

0.2 x 40 kg x 5 billion = 1 x 109 kg

300 kg/yr/person x 0.28 x 50 yr x 5 billion

= 2 x 1013 kg

Mass of trash

Mass of bone

1013/109 = 10,000:1

Brief History of Trash

first stone tools

first agriculture high civilizations

industrialization

The Very Base of the C-A Boundary Event—the first trash

Awash gravel

alluvial sand bank

OGS-7

tuff: 2.53±0.15 Ma

Middle Pleistocene gravel

Awash gravel

OGS-7

tuff: 2.53±0.15 Ma

Middle Pleistocene gravel

Gauss Chron

Matuyama Chron

2.58 Ma

In situ artifacts at OGS-7: the oldest stone artifacts

2.58 Ma

Stone Tool Making TraditionsOldowan

•cores with multiple flake scars•modified and unmodified flakes, usually small•2.6 to 1.8 Ma•up for grabs: perhaps made by early Homo (like H. habilis)

Acheulian

cores with multiple flake scars•modified and unmodified flakes; big!•picks and hand-axes•1.6 (?) to <1.0 Ma •made by Homo ergaster (erectus)

Asikli Hoyuk: Neolithic Tell in Turkey

Quade, Abell, J., J., Stiner, M., Mentzer, S., and Ozbasaran, M.

Aşıklı Höyük

structures

garbage

~10,200 BP

~9400 BP

8mm/yr

800 yrs10 m

refuserefuse

refusebricks/mortar

plaster

Industrial-Age Trash

Nagasaki: ground-zero Atacama Desert

Rio Grande floodplain Municipal landfill

Cambodian beach

Future section through a North American city

Future Marine Section

temperature productivity acidity

• We are creating the mother of all stratigraphic marker horizons—more conspicuous than even the K-T and P-T Boundary Events

• Truly a global trash layer, but most conspicuous in continental fluvial environments

• There will be no debate about Overkill!

• Key unknown: Will the C-A be an event or epoch? –Time will tell

• How will the C-A Boundary be interpreted?

Wrap up