Toward defining the Anthropocene onset using a rapid increase in anthropogenic fingerprints in global geological archives

Significance In the context of the Anthropocene, identifying the precise moment at which the consequences of fundamental human-induced changes in the Earth system first appear on the planet remains a long-standing challenge. This is due to the lack of a clear stratigraphic marker for the start date, as human impacts on Earth’s environments are significantly time-transgressive and spatiotemporally variable. Our study revealed that the number of anthropogenic fingerprints in global strata began to increase abruptly from 1952 ± 3 CE. This signal may reflect the onset of key human-induced changes in the Earth system, providing unambiguous stratigraphic evidence. This unprecedented synchronous increase has potential significance for defining the start of the Anthropocene in the future.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

• Publication date

  2024-09-23

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science, Geology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1073/pnas.2313098121PMID 39312679PMCID 11474069
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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