Are we in the 'Anthropocene Epoch' or still in the Holocene? What is 'Anthropocene'? Man's impact on the planet Earth. Download of PowerPoint will reveal full animation used to enhance the presentation.

3. Cenozoic Era
Pleistocene Epoch Holocene Epoch Anthropocene Epoch
Neogene Period
Paleogene Period
Quaternary Period

4. “It’s a new name for a new GEOLOGIC EPOCH – defined by ‘Man’s’ impact on the planet Earth; a
mark that will endure long after our cities have crumbled.
The word ‘ANTHROPOCENE’ was coined by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen while sitting at a scientific
conference. The Conference Chairperson kept referring to the HOLOCENE EPOCH (that began at
the end of the last ICE AGE, 11,500 years ago) and that officially at least [to some degree] continues
to this day.
Probably the most obvious way MAN is altering the planet EARTH is by building CITIES which are
essentially vast stretches of MAN-MADE MATERIALS: steel, glass, concrete and brick. Most cities
don’t stand the test of time, for the simple reason that they are built on LAND and on land the
FORCES OF EROSION tend to win out over those of SEDIMENTATION.
Chronostratigraphy:
The branch of geology concerned with establishing the absolute ages of strata.
Epoch:
Point marking the start of a new period in time. A division of time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself subdivide into ages,
corresponding to a series in chronostratigraphy. (e.g. era, age, time, aeon, span)
Erosion:
Is the wearing away of the land by forces such as water, wind and ice.
Geology:
The science which deals with the physical structure and substance of the earth, their history and the processes which act on them.
Sedimentation:
The natural process in which material (such as stones and sand) is carried to the bottom of a body of water and forms a solid layer.

5. Man has also transformed the planet EARTH through farming; something like 38% of the planet’s
ice-free land is now devoted to AGRICULTURE.
FERTILIZER FACTORIES, for example, now fix more NITROGEN from the air, converting it to a
biological usable form, than all the plants and MICROBES on land; the RUNOFF from fertilized fields
are choking river mouths with the growth of ALGAE. It is hard to detect THE NITROGEN CYCLE
(Video: The Nitrogen Cycle) as the synthesized nitrogen is just like its natural equivalent.
Agriculture:
The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food,
wool, and other products.
Alga (plural: Algae):
The algae comprise several different groups of living things which are similar to plants but are not actually true plants. All algae lack
true leaves, roots, flowers, stems and vascular tissue [circulates fluid and nutrients]. (e.g. seaweed)
Fertilizer:
A chemical or natural substance added to soil or land to increase its fertility.
Microbe:
Is any living organism that spends its life at a size too tiny to be seen with the naked eye. Microbes are single-cell organisms and are
the oldest form of life on earth. (e.g. bacteria)
Runoff:
is precipitation that did not get absorbed into the soil or did not evaporate and so made its way from the ground surface into places
that water collects. Runoff causes erosion and also carries chemicals and substances on the ground surface along the rivers where
the water ends up.

6. Probably the most significant change, from a GEOLOGIC PERSEPECTIVE, is the one that we can’t see
– the change in the composition of the atmosphere. CARBON DIOXIDE emissions are colourless,
odourless and in an immediate sense, harmless. But their warming effects could easily push
GLOBAL temperatures to level that have not been seen for millions of years.
Some plants and animals are already shifting their ranges toward the Poles (North and South), and
those shifts will leave traces in the FOSSIL RECORD. Some species will not survive GLOBAL
WARMING at all. Meanwhile rising temperatures could eventually raise sea levels twenty (20) feet
or more.
Carbon Dioxide:
A colourless, odourless gas produced by burning carbon and organic compounds and y respiration. It is naturally present in air (about
0.03) and is absorbed by plants in photosynthesis.
Chlorofluorocarbon:
Any of a class of compounds of carbon, hydrogen, chlorine and fluorine typically gases used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants.
They are harmful to the ozone layer in the earth’s atmosphere owing to the release of chlorine atoms on exposure to ultraviolet
radiation.
Fossil:
The remains or impression of a prehistoric plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in petrified form. There are two main
types of fossils: BODY and TRACE. Body Fossils include the remains of organisms that were once living and Trace Fossils are the signs
that organisms were present (i.e. footprints, tracks, trails and burrows)
Fossil Record:
The ‘fossil record’ refers to the placement of FOSSILS throughout the surface layers of the Earth. Older fossils are buried more deeply
than younger ones. Scientists use the placement of FOSSILS as a guide for determining when life forms existed and how they evolved.
Global Warming
A gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greehhouse effect caused by
increased levels of carbon dioxide, CFCs (Chloroflurocarbons) and other pollutants.

7. Acid:
A substance with particular chemical properties including turning litmus red, neutralizing alkalis and dissolving some metals typically a
corrosive or sour-tasting liquid of this kind.
Acid rain:
Rainfall made so acidic by atmospheric pollution that it causes environmental harm chiefly to forests and lakes. The main cause is the
industrial burning of coal and other fossil fuels, the waste gases from which contain sulphur and nitrogen oxides which combine with
atmospheric water to form acids.
Geologic Record:
The Geologic Record is the history of Earth as recorded in the rocks that make up its crust. Rocks have been forming and wearing
away since Earth first started to form, creating sediment that accumulates in layers of rock called strata.
Reef Gaps:
Throughout Earth’s history, there have been periods where climate hanged dramatically. The history of coral reefs gives us an insight
into the nature of these events as reefs are so enduring and the fossil record of corals is relatively well known. These intervals are
known as ‘reef gaps’.
Long after the ‘Impact of Man’ (by his cars, cities, factories) has turned to dust, the consequences
of burning billions of tons worth of coal and oil are likely to be more clearly noticeable.
As CARBON DIOXIDE warms Earth, it also seeps into the oceans and ACIDIFIES them. More likely
sometime this century they may become acidified to the point that corals can no longer construct
reefs, which would register in the GEOLOGIC RECORD as a ‘reef gap’.
REEF GAPS have marked each of the past five (5) major mass extinctions. The most recent one,
which is believed to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid, took place 65 million years ago,
at the end of the CRETACEOUS PERIOD; it eliminated not just the dinosaurs, but also the
plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and ammonites (an ammonoid fossil).

8. If we have indeed entered a NEW EPOCH, then when exactly did it begin?
When did human impacts rise to the level of GEOLOGIC SIGNIFICANCE?
William Ruddiman, a PALEOCLIMATOLOGIST at the University of Virginia, has proposed that the
invention of AGRICULTURE some 8,000 years ago and the DEFORESTATION that resulted led to an
increase in ATMOSPHERIC CO2 just large enough to stave off what otherwise would have been the
start of a new ice age; in his view, humans have been the dominant force on planet Earth practically
since the start of the HOLOCENE. Crutzen has suggested that the ANTHROPOCENE began in the
late 18th century when ice cores show carbon dioxide levels began what has since proved to be an
uninterrupted rise. Other scientists put the beginning of the NEW EPOCH in the middle of the 20th
century when the rates of both population growth and consumption accelerated rapidly.”
Adapted from Enter the Anthropocene - The Age of Man -
by Elizabeth Kolbert
Deforestation:
Is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses.
“Deforestation refers to the cutting, clearing and removal of rainforest or related ecosystems into less bio-diverse ecosystems such as
pasture, cropland or plantations.” (Kricher, 1997)
Causes: logging, mining, oil and gas extraction, cattle ranching, cash crops, Local National and International factors like land titles,
government subsidies, trade agreements, civil wars, lack of resources and lack of law enforcement.
Paleoclimatology:
Is the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth. Paleoclimatologists are scientists who figure out
what the earth’s climate was like before written records existed. They find clues in pollen from trees and plant at archaeological sites
and in ice, soil and lake beds. Fossils of plants and animals also can hold clues about what the climate was like hundreds thousands,
millions or even billions of years ago.

9. Oil transformed Dubai in the 1970s.
The city now boasts the world's tallest building, giant malls, and some two million residents, who depend
on desalinated seawater and air-conditioning—and thus on cheap energy—to live in the Arabian desert.
Photography by Jens Neumann/Edgar Rodtman

10. Changing Seas - Rosignano Solvay, Italy
A Tuscan beach captures the textured drama of humans and the sea. The "tropical" sands aren't natural;
they're whitened by carbonates from the chemical plant, which also discharged mercury until recently.
The plant converts salt extracted from the sea into chlorine and other essential products. Fossil fuels
power such transformations; worldwide, the CO2 from smokestacks and tailpipes is slowly acidifying the
ocean, threatening marine life.
Photography by Massimo Vitali

11. The Oil Century
South Belridge, California
Discovered in 1911, this field pumped on as cities were rebuilt for cars and as ancient petroleum
molecules were spun into household products such as plastics, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. South
Belridge today produces 32 million barrels a year—enough for nine hours of world demand. In this
century the world's supply may plummet.
photography by Edward Burtynsky

12. Moving Mountains
Kayford Mountain, West Virginia
As oil companies drill deeper for offshore oil, mining companies work 24/7 to level Appalachian peaks for
coal, which supplies half of U.S. electricity. This summit vanished in a day. Some 470 have been erased
since the 1980s; the waste often buries streams. Mountaintop removal recovers just 6 percent of a coal
deposit.
photograph by J Henry Fair

13. The Sixth Mass Extinction
Museum of History, Aralsk, Kazakhstan
The SHIP STURGEON Endangered Species: Ship Sturgeon is near extinction, and it's already gone from the
Aral Sea; water diversion for cotton farming reduced what was once the world's fourth largest lake to a
dust bowl. In the past half billion years asteroid impacts and other natural events have caused five
catastrophic mass extinctions of plants and animals. Humans may be causing a sixth.
Photograph by Carolyn Drake

14. Industrial Farming
Almería Province, Spain
On the arid plains of southern Spain, produce is grown under the world's largest array of greenhouses and
trucked north. Greenhouses use water and nutrients efficiently and produce all year—tomatoes in winter,
for instance. But globally the challenge is grain and meat, not tomatoes. It takes 38 percent of Earth's ice-
free surface to feed seven billion people today, and two billion more are expected by 2050.
Photograph by Edward Burtynsky

15. Food Chemistry
El Ejido, Spain
Fertilizers and pesticides make possible the high yields and flawless produce celebrated by this Spanish
billboard. The side effects are far-reaching—nitrogen runoff from fertilized land, for example, causes dead
zones at the mouths of rivers worldwide.
Photograph by Reinaldo Loureiro

16. A Dammed World - Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada
Dams tame floods, water crops (and people), and generate 16 percent of the world's electricity, carbon
free. They have also displaced 40 to 80 million people and destroyed river ecosystems. More than half the
world's large rivers are now dammed. Some, like the Colorado, are tapped out. Persistent drought has left
a "bathtub ring" in Lake Mead, which supplies water to much of the Southwest.
Photograph by Mitch Epstein

17. Alien Invaders
Akron, Alabama
Kudzu, a fast-growing Asian vine, has smothered millions of acres in the United States since it was planted
in the 1930s to control erosion. Exotics spread by humans are a global threat to biodiversity (the variety of
plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat). Most of the species on the U.S. threatened
and endangered lists are there in part because of alien invaders.
Photograph by William Christenberry

18. A Tide of Waste
Chittagong, Bangladesh
Ship breaking delivers jobs to Bangladesh and a wealth of scrap metal—but also asbestos, PCBs
(polychlorinated biphenyls – industrial products or chemicals), and other toxics. Though waste recycling
generally is booming, so is waste production. In American cities in recent decades, the two trends have
just about offset each other.
Photograph by Edward Burtynsky

19. Urban Supersprawl - Mexico City, Mexico
Some 20 million people live in Mexico City, the world's fifth largest metropolitan area. In 1800 the urban
fraction of the global population was 3 percent. Today it is 50 percent and rising. In crowded
shantytowns, the need for clean water and sanitation is urgent. But urbanization has an upside: per
capita, cities use less energy and pollute less than rural areas.
Photograph by Pablo Lopez Luz

20. The Face of Seven Billion
Earth’s seven billion are depicted by 7,000 figures each
representing a million people.
Go to the following website
Interactive: The Face of Seven Billion: The Age of Man
to:
• Zoom into the image;
• Learn how it was made;
 Learn facts about ‘The Face of Seven Billion’:
 Language;
 Nationality;
 Religion;
 Livelihood;
 Urban vs Rural;
 Literacy.

24. • Endangered Species: Ship Sturgeon
• Enter the Anthropocene - The Age of Man –
• Interactive: The Face of Seven Billion: The Age of Man
• Photo Gallery: Anthropocene: The Age of Man