a lake in Canada is the reference site of the geological era characterized by human activities – Corriere.it

A Canadian lake in the Ontario forests was chosen as a reference site to establish the beginning of the Anthropocene, i.e. the geological era characterized by human activities. Identified by the Anthropocene Working Group, the final decision lies with the International Commission of Stratigraphy of the International Union of Geological Sciences which has yet to give its approval (and it is not certain that it will happen).

The new age

The Anthropocene a new geological era, proposed for the first time in 2002 by the Nobel Prize for chemistry Paul Crutzencharacterized by the impact of humanity on the Earth which would close the Holocene, i.e. the current geological era, to start a new era in which human activities have brought about a change in the sedimentary series. However, not all scientists and geologists agree that this change is so significant as to justify the beginning of a new era, as it happened, for example, about 66 million years ago when the impact of an asteroid, with all the its consequences, marked a clear boundary in the sedimentary sequence and closed the Mesozoic era.

Crawford Lake

Crawford Lake, near Toronto, was chosen because in the stratified sediments on the bottom of this small body of water, with an area of ​​only one square kilometre, microplastics, oil and coal combustion ash and radioactive traces of explosions of nuclear bombs. These would be evidence of the Great Acceleration, i.e. the beginning of a new geological chapter in Earth’s history that could be placed in the calendar between 1950 and 1954. The sediments of Lake Crawford provide an exceptional record of environmental changes over the past millennia , explained Simon Turner of University College London, chair of the working group. From the hundreds of samples analysed, Crawford Lake was proposed as the primary marker, along with twelve supporting secondary sites showing the effects of human impact.