‘There’s been a fundamental change in our planet’: hunt on for spot to mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch

A site that shows how humans have changed the structure of our planet will be selected in a few weeks. When a new era called the Anthropocene is born and the previous one ends, they will pick a place to show it.

At the end of the last ice age 11,700 years ago, the glaciers that had previously covered the Earth began to retreat. Modern humans are spreading across the planet.

Our expansion had consequences. The gases released by burning fossil fuels and the radioactive material we have produced have begun to make fundamental changes to Earth's geology.

The name Anthropocene has been given to the replacement for the Holocene because many scientists think it's time for humans to take over the planet. The years that followed the second world war were when countries embarked on a massive economic and industrial expansion that is known as the "great acceleration". It is said that this triggered the Anthropocene.

Exactly where this transformation should be marked has not been decided. A list of nine sites, including coral reefs in Australia, layers of silt from Canada and ice core fromAntarctica, were created last year by the Anthropocene Working Group as the best candidates in providing markers, in their sediments, that best demonstrate the changes that led to the new

A process that will require three other senior bodies to support the proposal will begin later this year after votes from members are counted. The winner will be marked with a brass plaque, which is used to signify the start of a new era. There is a plaque on a mountain in Italy that commemorates the beginning of the Pleistocene.

According to Professor Jan Zalasiewicz of the University ofLeicester, humanity is playing a major role in influencing the geology of our planet. What spot is the best example of these changes?

The impact humans have had on our planet's geology can be seen in the example of aluminum. It is rare to find pure metallic aluminum in nature. It's only in a small amount. Most of our aluminum comes from ores in which the metal has formed compounds.

Over the past 100 years, we've mined oxides, hydroxides and silicates, processed them, and used them to make half a billion pounds of metallic aluminum.

They were dumped when they stopped being used. Despite some recycling taking place, metallic aluminum has been spread across the planet. He said that it would be a sure sign that aliens were landing in the distant future.

There are more markers of the Anthropocene than the appearance of metallic aluminum. The element plutonium is used as an example. The birth of the atomic age made it very rare. plutonium was released from nuclear bombs when they were tested in the air.

Professor Colin Waters said that if you looked at some measures of the Anthropocene, you could see steady growth over the past century. There was no plutonium in the ground until the second world war ended. There was a lot of it suddenly. It's a good marker for the beginning of the Anthropocene and suggests a date in the early 1950's.

The species we have helped spread around the globe gives a clear signal that we have entered a new geological epoch. The Pacific oyster and the zebra mussel are examples of organisms that have spread from one part of the world to another.

Most of us think that the dawn of the Anthropocene was caused by the widespread use of plastic in the 1950's. The most important thing we have to decide is which of the sites we have narrowed down to, which gives us the clearest signal among the measures we have selected.

The point was supported by Zalasiewicz. Advanced species will be able to detect how we changed the Earth in the distant future. We have to realize that now.

All of our buildings and roads will have crumbled to dust before then, but the subtle changes that we made to the soil will continue and show that a global civilisation once dominated this planet.

The Beppu Bay is on Kyushu Island.

There are mud layers in Crawford Lake.

There is coral in the Coral Sea.

The Baltic Sea is home to marine fossils.

There is ice from the Palmer ice core.

The Silt was from Searsville Lake.

The mud is from Sihailongwan Lake.

Peat from the mountains.

There is coral in the Gulf of Mexico.

Anthropocene working group