Anthropocene The new human geological era

Man in the industrial age left such a large mark on the world that geologists in the future will be able to identify our era as the geological age of man.

Geologists divide the 4.5 billion years of the earth into geological eras with each era divided into intermediate periods, in the last 10.000 years the globe is in the Holocene period, already in the 19th century researchers wrote about the many changes created by man and their influence.

In the last two hundred years, the human population has caused so many changes in the environment that the changes are moving the earth into a new geological period. Now scientists propose to call the period that begins "the new human" according to researchers from the "American Geological Society" and the "Geological Society of London" Geological Society of London / Geological Society of America brought the industry to a new geological period.

Several years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen proposed to officially recognize the changes that brought about the new era. And he suggested the name. Now two researchers Jan Zalasiewicz / Mark Williams join the proposal. The reasons and factors for the researchers' proposal are:
• Extensive changes in the composition of the sediments, in the weathering and in the deposition of the layers.
• Obvious disruption and change in the carbon cycle and globe temperatures.
• Changes on a large scale in biology - changes in flowering periods.
• Changes in bird migration.
• An increase in the acidity of the oceans, which endangers the microbiological system, the same system that forms the basis of the food chain.

Researchers in the future will have no problem identifying the period, digging in the layers and identifying the components in the soil will reveal the changes that happened over time. Volcanic eruptions, ice ages or mass extinctions can be identified in the resulting layers.

The researchers claim that: "There is enough evidence for the significant change in the stratification (past and about to occur) to recognize the new era", in a separate article that appeared in "Soil Science" researchers claim that one of the markers for the new era is soil poverty (infertility) when about half of the land The ball is used for agriculture, grazing, construction and cutting trees, the utilization is expressed in a layering that will be clearly visible to geologists in the future, the changes in the structure of the layers will be seen and will be clear enough to justify the marking of a new geological period. Therefore we are at the dawn of the "new human era".

Dr. Assaf Rosenthal, ecologist,
Tour guide/leader in Africa and South America.
For details: Tel. 0505640309 / 077-6172298,
Email: assaf@eilatcity.co.il