The Anthropocene Epoch Began With 1945 Atomic Bomb Test, Scientists Say

hypnosec writes: Scientists have proposed July 16, 1945 as the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch. That was the day of the first nuclear detonation test. They say "the Great Acceleration" — the period when human activities started having a significant impact on Earth – are a good mark of the beginning of the new epoch. Since then, there has been a significant increase in population, environmental upheaval on land and oceans, and global connectivity. The group says in their article (abstract), "The beginning of the nuclear age ... marks the historic turning point when humans first accessed an enormous new energy source – and is also a time level that can be effectively tracked within geological strata, using a variety of geological clues."

Comments

Broken Style

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The Anthropocene Epoch ended when the Bad Slashdot Style Epoch began after the following style code was introduced:

#comments { clear:both; display:block; position:relative; padding: 0; margin: 0 0 0 122px; padding-right: 1.5em;z-index:1;}

Get rid of the 122px left margin--it's wasting a lot of space.

Re:Academic wankery at its finest

[mspohr]

Also... from TFAbstract, they chose the date because all of the nuclear explosions have left a clear marker of radioisotopes which can be easily located when tracing the geological record.