PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast
PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast
The Anthropocene
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Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
SPEAKER_01The the good doctor.
SPEAKER_00The good doctor's in the house. Settle in. Don't ever say that again. Settle in with Chris and Jesse. That's Chris. You just have a drivetime radio voice, though. I mean, yeah, you could be, ah, well, traffic uh 995 is really bad. And avoid the left lane. Here's some slow jams with Chris Balhoes.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a guy on our local radio that does the traffic. And every time he comes on, it's only like a you know 15-second segment, right? Or maybe 20 seconds, right? And then the way he signs off, I always repeat it when he's done because it is just, it's so, I don't know what it is, whether it's annoying or just so distinctive, and I always have to repeat it.
SPEAKER_00One of these things that just it's like an earworm just gets in your head, and you just got to get it out.
SPEAKER_01And I'm all by myself, and I do it every single time.
SPEAKER_00So if you're out there listening to this and you have an earworm from Chris, let us know. Chris's whatever Chris's catchphrase. Are you Karstein? Erosion happens. It does. What was the other one? Gosh, I always forget. I need to we need to make a list of Chris's t-shirt slogans. What was the other one? You had another one recently. Did I? Erosion happens. Oh gosh, I'm not going to remember it now.
SPEAKER_01I can't. I don't know what you're talking about. You forget.
SPEAKER_00You deleted your emails, and if you you've forgotten the entire last three years of what we've done on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01When you spit out so much wisdom, Jesse, you forget it.
SPEAKER_00It's it's like, you know, I have Is that right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I've forgotten more information than you know, or I don't know how that I don't know how that goes either.
SPEAKER_00It's whatever. It's close. Okay, so speaking of wisdom. Yeah, right. Yeah. Today is okay, the Anthropocene. Chris, what is the Anthropocene and what does it mean to you when you hear it?
SPEAKER_01Well, this stirs up a bit of controversy in the geologic community. The idea of whether we should have this division in the geologic timescale. What the Anthropocene is all about is basically should we mark a point in time when humans have had an impact on the geology of our planet? Right? That's what I think of when I think of Anthropocene.
SPEAKER_00I guess perfect. I mean, and I agree. And this is a, like you said, a hot topic in geoscience. And this is a listener question as well. Uh actually a couple of people have suggested we talk about this or requested we talk about this because it kind of came up this past summer. There was a new batch of news on the Anthropocene. And so, Chris, the way, well, the way we're gonna talk this is we're gonna, we haven't actually talked about the geologic timescale that much, like the actual formal geologic timescale. So I think it's probably a good time to introduce that and just talk through the boundaries in the geologic timescale, how they're divided, sort of geologic boundaries, not the Anthropocene, back in time, and use that as a way to talk about the Anthropocene and the recent proposal of a particular place to put the marker that would potentially represent the Anthropocene. But it's a proposal at the moment, and at this stage, at the time of recording, we don't really know the official outcome from the the group of geoscientists who decides these things.
SPEAKER_01That's a good point. Jesse, you still have it memorized, right? You you have the entire stereodic table memorized.
SPEAKER_00So I I actually take a decent amount of heat in my department because well, we've talked a lot about this. I work on really old rocks, right? The geologic timescale is super simple when you go back in time. There's the Hadean, there's the Archean, there's a couple divisions in the Archean. It's like always the pink area of the geologic time scale. I cannot, for the life of me, Chris, put any of these other things in order. Can you? Um the order of Jurassic, Triassic, you know, Cretaceous, whatever, would you be able to do that at that level or or not?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I could do that. Only those three, though.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Only those three. But uh you're right. I mean, I don't know. Do you make your students memorize any part of the periodic table? Like what's your level of how do you get into this? I I have to do some of it, but I don't make them memorize much of it at all.
SPEAKER_00I I agree. I do not either. And this is a I don't remember when I had to memorize it in undergrad. I know I had to at some point, but I think it was in like a 200-level class. It wasn't the 100-level, it wasn't the intro class that you had to sort of memorize this. I think it was more when we were talking about a lot of sedimentary rocks, you kind of had to at least know the the big divisions. So it's a little bit more second-tier geology knowledge, maybe, but I've since that point, since I was a sophomore junior in college, I forgot it a long time ago. Okay. So every time somebody gives a talk, they're like, oh, well, you know, these are Eocene volcanic rocks. I'm like, uh, okay, give me a number. Like, what is the number on that? Because I don't know where the Eocene is in the timescale.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So there are certain things that that trigger for me, and the Eocene happens to be one of them because the Eocene is when the abserica volcanics were going on. And so I I do have a number in my head for that.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01But it's it's things like that that are just random, totally like, oh, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00So you associate an event with a geologic time period, like uh one one you talk about a lot or one you really like. Yeah, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01What I do with my students, I think it's important, is to know that the boundaries that we that are established in the geologic time scale, they're not arbitrary. They're based upon things that happened. Let's say the the Cambrian, going from the pre-Cambrian to the Cambrian, this explosion in life that happened, right? And so that's why there's a marker there. And so I use things like that or the Cretaceous Tertiary boundary. You know, that was this mass global extinction that happened. And so there were things geologically or biologically that happened that caused the divisions to be placed where they are. And I pick kind of like some important ones to emphasize from that standpoint. That's really the extent that I do it in my class.
SPEAKER_00So, okay, well, maybe let Chris let's back up and just give the geologic time scale for people. So the way these are broken up, or the way that the geologic time scale is broken up with these boundaries. These boundaries have clear meaning. Like the number on the boundary is a change point in Earth history of some kind. They're broken apart into different divisions or different like stages here, geologic stages. The biggest one is called an eon, that's Eon, Eon, and that's from oldest to youngest, Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic. And Phenerozoic is like everything younger than about 560 million years old. So the Proterzoic goes from about 560 to you know 2.5 billion years, the Archean is 2.5 to 4 billion years. So these are like huge amounts of time. Eons are big amounts of time. Then eons are divided up into periods, and the periods will have names like Jurassic, Triassic, Cretaceous, Quaternary, those are ones people have heard. And so those periods, Jurassic, Triassic, Cretaceous, those are divided up into epochs, and they are hold on.
SPEAKER_01You are a funny guy. What did you just say? Epoch. What did you just say? Epoch. But are you uh are you from across the pond now? Are you British?
SPEAKER_00Uh you know, is that what's going on? My bowler's hat from London here. Jesse. I was just in London, Chris.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if you knew that or not, but is is that the doctory way to say epic then? Is epoch? Yeah, is that how it's done?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think so. You know, if you're fancy, you say epoch. But if you're Chris Bullheis, you say epic because you think there's an I in this word somewhere.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, it's not that it's not like that. No, seriously, like is that the way your professors when you were like, is that your education?
SPEAKER_00Oh man, Chris, this is a really hard one because I don't remember. I know in grad school there was a lot of uh there's a lot of Brits in University of Alberta and Canadians, there's a lot of like British isms that exist in Canadian lingo. Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. Kind of stupid in my opinion, but it's there. Center is spelled at C-E-N-T-R-E. Dumb, but that's how they do it. So there's so I think my grad school days, I got this sort of blended uh You are a bit of a mixed bag, aren't you? Yeah, I'm a mutt. Yeah, I'm a mutt for sure.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that makes total sense then. Okay, you're excused. You could now I know Joyce is gonna agree though, it's pronounced epic. What we're talking about, it's spelled E-P O C H S. And I would I look at that and I'm like, well, that's an epic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that's I don't know. Okay, whatever. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. It's an interesting point. Just look it up and both are accepted. Okay, good. We don't have to take so Joyce. We're both right. It's not just Chris who's always right. Um, so these things are gonna be like Miocene, oligocene, Eocene. You talked about Eocene before. So these are like the smaller divisions, epochs or epics are smaller divisions. Those can be divided into ages, and the ages are at risk of offending sedimentologists. Basically, they're the only people who care about these things. Lutizian, Bartonian, these really super specific, you know, they'll be several million years in length, but they're like really, really small parts of geologic time. And the way that I talk about this, Chris, is I say, okay, look at the geologic time scale. Some people think of it as a clock where time is kind of linear, going around the clock from 12 o'clock a.m. to to 12 midnight. That's a linear. All of the geologic divisions are in that last part. The vast majority of these epochs and ages and periods are all in this phanerozoic, the last 500 million years. And if you look at it as a grid, if you just kind of map out all those divisions, the area of the chart is dominated by the last several hundred million years old. And the way I describe it is the scale, when you look at it that way, I think if people listening to this just look up IUGS geologic time chart and you'll see the divisions. Those things, the area on that chart scales with information. So we have more divisions more recently because we have a lot better record recently. And they're also divided mostly by like mass extinction events. So when did animal life change or when did biology change on Earth? That's where a lot of the divisions come from.
SPEAKER_01That's right. Because when you talk about the eon that was, was it it's formerly called Precambrian, right? We still use this all the time. That's that's not yeah.
SPEAKER_00So Precambrian is not an Eon, it's a it's like an informal uh time designation.
SPEAKER_01Right, but that encompasses over 87% of geologic time. It is crazy. And so just a very small amount of the geologic time scale has happened since then. That's why you say that there's more detail that's preserved in these younger rocks, and it's almost all of it's gonna fall into you know the Cambrian and much, much younger.
SPEAKER_00Much younger. Yeah, exactly. And that that works, you know, forward in time. The most recent epoch is the Holocene, the Holocene. And this is part of the Quaternary period. So Quaternary, when you look at a map, if you look at a geologic map, you'll have basement gneisses, you'll have a bunch of uh different types of sedimentary rocks, and then you'll have a catch-all term called quaternary cover, which is basically like river bottoms, river sediment and stuff like that. Glacial till would be quaternary cover, that's the youngest period there.
SPEAKER_01That's right. So before we jump into talking a little bit about the Anthropocene, then we need to talk about these things that are called golden spikes. I think maybe there aren't very many people that are familiar with what these golden spikes are, but these are actual physical spikes. They're little emblems, right, Jesse?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're like little, you know. So, Chris, if you you've hiked a lot of summits of mountains, right? You know that the little circular like brass emblazoned disc that they'll stamp in the top of a mountain. Yeah, the benchmarks, absolutely. They're exactly like this. That that's what they look like. They got a little emblem on them and the little designation.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever seen a golden spike?
SPEAKER_00I have in the real before in in real life. Nope. Okay. Have you? Have you? I have not. I have not.
SPEAKER_01No. So these are physical spikes that are put in specific locations, but there is a bunch of rules that determine whether or not I mean if there's no rules, we live in a civilization.
SPEAKER_00We gotta have rules, you know. Now, I have a question though.
SPEAKER_01This is something I actually don't know. Are they only put between epics, the golden spikes, or do they put a golden spike between, you know, between periods, like the Jurassic and the Cretaceous and the and the Triassic? Do we put them there too?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that's a great question, Chris. And if you just look at the the time chart, the time scale, the the international stratigraphic chart, a lot of the ages or stages, those are the smallest subdivisions, a lot of those will have golden spikes in between them. So then by definition, the series or epochs or the eons will also have spikes there. So put them between the smallest layers, then the biggest ones will have them, but not all of them. Some of them do not have golden spikes in them.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Like they won't have a place that that fits all these rules that we're gonna talk about.
SPEAKER_01Right. And that's the segue then. Let's let's talk about what some of these rules are. Like I said, we're just gonna kind of gloss over this, we're not hitting this, and so I I apologize if we're offending some sedimentologists here, but I mean, no, we don't apologize.
SPEAKER_00I take I take back that apology. I'm not gonna apologize.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, good point. I don't either. I don't really care. But in order to have this, just a couple of commonalities. First, it has to be a really thick outcrop. And I don't know if there's like a definition of what thick means, but it it has to be a thick outcrop. And you know what else, too? And I think this is cool. It has to be accessible and it has to be free.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good that's a good one. I like that. It has to be free and publicly accessible. Accessible meaning like you can get there on a road, or that's what they mean by accessible. You could drive most of the way there, basically. Another thing that surprised me, another rule was that sedimentation has to be continuous across the boundary. So you can't have an unconformity be the geologic boundary, right? You have to have a continuous record of sedimentation, which then begs the question what is the boundary, or how do you put a golden spike somewhere in a continuous record of sedimentation? And basically it's the appearance of a fossil species, one of these index fossils that sort of defines the time period change, the global extinction event, or whatever happened, it defines that time frame.
SPEAKER_01Right on. And so that brings a question to my mind, and I don't know if you have the answer. I don't. Would the KT boundary, this extinction event with the meteor that wiped out all the dinosaurs and and most of the marine life? So there are certain places where you had continuous deposition of, let's say, limestone, right, in the oceans. And so you look at forminifera, and it's very, very diverse, and just all kinds of species that were thriving, and then all of a sudden you have this boundary clay there, and above the boundary clay, there's next to nothing. So you kind of have continuous deposition, but would that count as an area that a golden spike would be placed?
SPEAKER_00So there is a golden spike, and it's in Tunisia for that that KT boundary, and that is one that you're right, it's not a continuous homogeneous amount of limestone. Like, for instance, it's not just straight limestone. There is this boundary clay, but the boundary clay is in addition to the background sedimentation, I think. So, you know, the limestone's being deposited at a consistent rate or the marls or whatever it is, and then you have this extra clay layer in there that's because of the KT extinction that has the viridium anomaly and you know represents the fossil transition and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Right. So I the reason I asked the question is because I know another stipulation is that it the outcrop can't be affected by plate tectonic processes or metamorphic processes or events. And so I wonder if a meteor impact would fall into a category like that that would okay, this doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00It's certainly not metamorphosed, but it's not disturbed enough because actually, you know, it's so this is sort of a gray area one, I'd imagine. I mean, I'm not I don't make these decisions, but I'd imagine it's kind of a gray area where uh it's a big event, but that represents that is the boundary. The event is the boundary in a way. So globally, it's not like it's it's some unconformity somewhere on the earth and not everywhere else, but this is like the event. So I'm guessing that's the the rationale for it. So because you're right, Chris, you we we've talked about this boundary layer. We talked to Ian Miller about the boundary layer for the KT extinction van that's exposed down in Colorado that you've been to, right? I've I've not been there before, but the rock record is there in Colorado, but it's not the golden spike place. The golden spike is in another place that has a slightly maybe better record of that event.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. It's a good point. And when I think about that, it it gives me chills because when you're able to put your finger on that boundary clay layer there and know what that represents, but where I saw it was in Trinidad State Park, which is in southern Colorado, and it's not free, you know. Oh, there you go. Okay, maybe that's why. I don't know. But there are other places that are alongside the road where yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, so maybe Chris, that's a good transition to the Anthropocene. And I think one thing too, let's take that transition and let's say, okay, if you're listening to this thing, think about a setting that would fit the bill here. Like, how would you record or where would you put your rubber stamp or your golden spike of oh, humans have started to impact the planet at this point in time? Where would you like put that finger? Because let's put it this way there's a a lot of um discussion around this about whether we should or should not even have a golden spike, that is the Anthropocene, and whether, if we do want one, where should we put it in what type of setting? Because this is different, it's not gonna be in the rock record because it's too young to be making rocks mostly yet. So we're gonna be not looking at a package of sediments that's like tilted in this hillside or something like that, right? We're we're talking about something distinctly different than what we've been describing so far.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this brings up the controversial points to the whole idea of Anthropocene to begin with, right? Where do we put the boundary? Do we put it at 1940? Do we put it in between 1940 and 1960? And then, well, does that kind of is that a sleight of hand to prior to 1940? You know, I mean, look, here's the deal. I think this is something you and I can both agree on, Jesse. Humans are having an impact geologically. We're a force, we're having an impact on our planet. And I don't think that that's the controversy. At least that's not my take on it. I think it's where do we put the line? Where do we actually draw it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe let's talk about how the lines are drawn or let's touch on that. How are these things decided? Like how does this work functionally and the the how do geologists decide this? So, with regard to the Anthropocene, there's a thing called the Anthropocene Working Group. And this is part of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. This is a bunch of stratigraphers, sedimentologists who decide where these boundaries go. How do we divide geologic time? Where do we put the golden spike? So it's a big group of people sort of studying this and thinking about this. And there's a working group, the Anthropocene Working Group. It was set up in 2009 to decide whether to put a boundary and if so, where. And they recently proposed a site for Golden Spike that's in Canada, in Ontario, Canada, a place called Crawford Lake. And Crawford Lake, Chris, I know you're thinking it in your head, you're thinking, is Crawford Lake Karsty? And you would be right. Crawford Lake is Karsty.
SPEAKER_01I knew Crawford Lake was Karsty. You knew it was Karsty that I did know it's Karsty. Yeah, absolutely. Well, but Crawford Lake is actually a sinkhole. It's a lake, is there because water dumping into a sinkhole. And we've covered this in past episodes recently.
SPEAKER_00So this is a really important point to why this location is useful for this type of record, because think of a sinkhole. We've described these things like caves collapsing. Caves can be super deep and fairly narrow. And that's what this lake is. It's deep and narrow. So it's a relatively small kind of uh I don't know, in farm country we'd call this like a pothole lake, but it's deep.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't like that. I don't like that. To me, that's confusing to call it a pothole lake. I think geologically, I don't like it.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what I mean? No, I know completely what you mean, but like, you know, topographically, it's it, you know, people would say, oh, it's just a it's a round circular lake. People just colloquially say, oh, pothole lake, right? So that's the visual, but it's deep and it's a sinkhole lake. So it's not a pothole lake, it's a sinkhole lake. It is karsty. But this is really great because it has this like high aspect ratio, it's deep and narrow, which means that the water, the surface waters, the ones that get seasonally warm and cold and in there in Canada, so it freezes over in the winter and warms up in the summer, that does not mix with the deeper waters. So we have kind of two different layers of water that do not mix, which means that the bottom is super, super stable. The bottom water layer.
SPEAKER_01All right, Jesse, ask me a question. Ask me Chris.
SPEAKER_00What is your favorite color?
SPEAKER_01No, that's not what I want to. Oh, I want you to ask me where do you think, Chris, a good place to put a golden spike would Or to look for a golden spike for the Anthropocene would be. Okay. Can you ask me that, please? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Chris. Um, so I got a question for you, Chris. Where do you think would be a good spot to put a golden spike for the Anthropocene?
SPEAKER_01So I'm a little con I'm being honest with you here. Quit laughing at me.
SPEAKER_00I can't help it sometimes.
SPEAKER_01Crawford Lake. Okay, I get it, but it doesn't seem to be accessible.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Great point. I agree completely. Like it, you know, this is at the if you want to go see.
SPEAKER_01Like this doesn't make sense, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But okay. So then my other thought is why does it have to be a lake like this? Why can't it really be any lake? Why can't it be one of the kettle lakes that we have all over the place in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin? Like you would have continuous deposition in those as well, I would think. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I I I think there's probably a lot of lakes that fit the bill here that could potentially fit the bill. Like, for instance, up in Canada, where I do my research, the diamond mines are Kimberlites erupt. We've talked about this before, this kind of carrot-shaped tube of an eruption. So you get these circular round holes that are really deep. Some of these things have seen continuous deposition for 30 million years since the eruption of the Kimberlites, because it's a hole in the Canadian Shield that has seen sediment deposited. They're very deep, they're very narrow. You know, these fit the bill too. Really nice, for instance, record of varves, which varves are seasonal layering. So it'll go in the case of up in this part of the world, you'll have summer sediments will be organic rich and sort of black colored, and then winter sediments will be more carbonate, uh carbonate rich. So you kind of have these beautiful black, white, black, white, black, white, light gray, dark, gray, light gray, dark gray.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's the sedimentation version of tree rings, right? Oh, that's able to count and really work your way back in time because each one of those pairs represents a year between organic rich and organic poor, basically. That's the way I usually think about it, right? And I love varves. I think varves are absolutely fascinating. Yeah, they are. You know, in terms of like soft rock geology, I I love it because I think of Yellowstone when I think of Varvee. Oh, hey, Varvey. Because when the ice dams blocked the rivers and the outflow from Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone Lake expanded into these valleys like Hayden Valley and Pelican Valley, these very famous iconic places.
SPEAKER_00We've got a great gif of this in our Yellowstone book that is now available on the mobile app. You can go buy it now. But our Yellowstone geological visual audio book we have some cool, cool gifts that we made that show you know the extent of Yellowstone Lake at this time when there was ice dams there. Anyway, sorry for the deviation and and sales pitch there, but No, no, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01That was shameless. Nice job, shameless. Um, and there's also a famous place uh called Storm Point. It's a very beautiful place, takes it's a trail from the road that walks you out along the shoreline of Yellowstone Lake along the northern edge, right? And it's a beautiful place where rivers uh carve these bluffs into this soft sediment. And if you just know what you're looking for a little bit, you just go up to those bluffs and take like a spoon, maybe, and kind of like just carve out a little bit of the get the dust away, is what I'm saying, basically. And you can see these varves. It's uh it's amazing. You can see light, dark, light, dark, light, dark, and there are hundreds of them or or thousands of them. They're spectacular. So when I think of vars, that's that's usually the what pops into my mind. It's it's kind of like this sentimental thing. I get excited.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I uh well, it's not quite as sentimental for me, but I I did drill, well, drill. I mean, it's take a big steel tube and plunk it down in these back dune lakes. So the lakes behind the dunes in Michigan. So we got the uh, you know, these big dunes right along the shore of Lake Michigan in these little lakes behind them, these kind of potholey lakes behind them, and they have really nice varv records. And in undergrad, I spent a day, I think we were helping another researcher, you know, drill. So we're not sitting on a pontoon boat and you know, plunking this big steel thing down into the bottom and taking out a big core and looking at the varves. Beautiful varv record there. But you know, it's muddy and it would just kind of the the varv record, if you weren't careful, would just kind of fall apart. It would just sort of squish out. And so that this kind of segue award comes back to Crawford Lake here because Crawford Lake is really well studied in this varv record. And the reason that the golden spike was proposed to be put there was that in these lake sediments, there's a very clear record of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, which is atomic weapons testing, atmospheric atomic weapons testing, which pushed a bunch of radioactive elements like plutonium and cesium, certain isotopes of those two elements, into the atmosphere, which then rained down globally and are deposited in small amounts. I mean, not like damaging amounts to humanity, but in small amounts, detectable amounts, you can see a spike. Much like the iridium anomaly at the meteorite impact site we were talking about before, these cesium and plutonium signals are suggested to mark the onset of the Anthropocene in this lake bed. So basically, you have the core and you can point to it. I mean, you could dive down into the water too and figure it out, but that's more difficult and less accessible.
SPEAKER_01So another thought just popped into my head, and you have no idea what I'm gonna say, but Chris, I rarely have any idea what you're gonna say. So this is why can't we go back to the start of the Industrial Revolution then? And and there's stuff in the atmosphere that began pumping and therefore raining down into lakes just like this. Why 1940s?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So why not prior to that?
SPEAKER_00I think this brings us to the the last part of this, which is I'd be very curious on your perspective on the Anthropocene. Two questions. Should we have such a thing as the Anthropocene? And B, where should we put it? Like what part of geologic time and where what types of rocks or sediments should we put it in? That kind of a two-part question. But let me just say before we get to that, that this came out this summer. At the time of recording, I have not seen it accepted. And all the news articles in June and July suggested that by August, a little bit before the recording of this, that it would have come out. So I don't know if it's gonna be accepted as the golden spike for the Anthropocene or not, or if because this this Anthropocene Working Group proposed it to the the larger cohort of stratigraphers, and then you know they decide somehow vote or something like that on whether to do it or not. So it's not like official on the geologic timescale yet, and I have not seen an announcement that it has been, and we're kind of overdue. So I think this that plays nicely into this question. What do you think, Chris?
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, I I feel totally unqualified to answer this question, but it is our podcast, and so I'm going to answer the question.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I asked you.
SPEAKER_01Um, again, you know, you and I, we're not soft rock kind of guys, we're more hard rock people, and uh this is more of a soft rock question, right? But I then again, too, I think that we don't need to overthink this whole thing. Do I think there should be a golden spike found for the Anthropocene? And do I think the Anthropocene should be acknowledged? A hundred percent. Because I we are a force.
SPEAKER_00So there's a counterpoint to that, and I don't really know where I stand on this particular issue. There's some aspect of me that thinks that it's sort of a pedantic argument. Like I don't know, I just can't I can't get into it. I can't care about it. And to me, that's like a representation of uh maybe I don't deem it that important or something. Because there is an argument to be made by by very good geologists that say that we don't know that humanity's impact is not pretty short-lived. We're not looking at geologic time. You know, most of these boundaries are big divisions between blocks of time that are 10 million years apart, and there's like a big change there, and all indications point to this being a mass extinction event that humans have induced and stuff, but we don't know the future. This hasn't played out yet. So uh it's sort of there was one quote that somebody said that uh a geologist at Cornell said, you can't define your own time. And I think it was kind of an allusion to like societal definition. So there's part of me that that argument resonates that humans are having a big impact and we should worry about the impact we're having. Should we care about defining it and spend some time defining it? I I find that less important than like fixing the problems, I guess.
SPEAKER_01I guess I find it important because we need to acknowledge it. If we don't, then we're kind of like saying, Well, we're not really having that big of an impact. I guess that's my take on it. And again, I'm not really educated to have an opinion on this, but I kind of do. Yeah, well, I mean, because I don't sometimes we overthink things.
SPEAKER_00I think this is important for for geologists of all kinds to sort of think through these things. Like, you know, we look at the geologic time scale and how do we think about this period of time that we're in at the moment? I think it's a really important thing. To your point about like where to put the spike, where would you put it? Because there were other suggestions that say, let's put it when we start to see industrial revolution like dust in the you know, in the glacial ice cores, like let's put it there. And that's one argument that people who say we should not define the Anthropocene say is how would you pick which place to put it? Because we don't actually know how this plays out. Should you put it in the industrial revolution side? Should you put it in the nuclear weapons testing? Should you put it in, I don't know, pick your favorite layer. I don't know. There's a lot of different places to put it. So what would you what do you think about that?
SPEAKER_01All of them fit under the same umbrella, and that's us. And so I think that you have to put it at the beginning of our recognizable impact. And it has to go back to the industrial revolution, because you know, this the stuff that's raining down is not just preserved in ice cores, it has to be preserved in VARVs. And again, that's for other people to prove, but you know it is, right? It's there, it has to be. There's no question about it. And so then you you know you jump ahead to the 1940s and 50s with all the nuclear bomb testing, but that still falls under the umbrella of us, anthropogenic. So that's where I would put it. I'd I'd put it at the Industrial Revolution, at least.
SPEAKER_00I would put it on um Chris Bullheis' birthday.
SPEAKER_01The onset you want to put a golden spike on okay. I I think that it deserves the name Golden Spike 1971. Okay, there we go.
SPEAKER_00I mean for once we agree, Jesse. For once we agree. I it is an interesting question. The conversation is important, at least, and that maybe the result is less important of where the spike is, but the conversation about it in in like I I find this very interesting, the discussion at least.
SPEAKER_01That surprises me. That surprises me because you know, when we you when you and I were talking about you know putting this episode together, you used that word. You said, I don't know. I just kind of the the whole anthropocene argument is kind of pedantic, and it I'm not sure. I don't know. Uh that kind of surprises me to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00Um Well, I don't know. There's something about the argument that we just don't know how this plays out yet that resonates with me. Whereas when we look at geologic time, we have a before and after picture. We know what happened at that boundary. In this one, we we don't have that after picture yet, and hopefully it's not as bad as as some of the predictions would say. Uh, you know, we're we can constantly work to sort of minimize that. So maybe there's part of me that's like clinging to hope that it's a really ephemeral thing and we can kind of get back on the right path, that it isn't as big of a uh an event as I mean it's certainly good, there's going to be a record of it, but hopefully we can we can work to kind of minimize that. Uh maybe that ship has sailed and I'm being just completely delusional. But yeah, I I don't I think that's where my mind goes.
SPEAKER_01I I think you are. I don't mean that. Like I think I I actually think you are in this. Do we need to know the end to be able to say that we're having an impact?
SPEAKER_00Well, this is the thing, Chris. I uh this is this is the thing that I think uh for me the argument of the industrial revolution makes a little bit more sense because there's been a couple hundred years where since that time, putting in the 1950s is like, okay, what if this cesium spike is just what if there's never another atmospheric nuclear you know weapons detonation again? Like it's just a a one spike uh sort of event. Whereas I like I understand why that's like a uh a representation of humanity's development and impact, but the industrial revolution resonates a little bit better for me, uh I think. But there's part of me, like I would well, I'm not a stratigrapher. I I just you know, looking at squiggles in the dirt is not super interesting to me at a default, and so obviously, like the Anthropocene Working Group would not be something I would be like qualified to or interested in joining.
SPEAKER_01That's true, that's true. It's a good point. It's a good point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And the the other the other aspect of this is it could get like everything, I guess, in our society these days, it could get hyperpolitical. Yeah, yes, that's like you know, this could be used for pros and cons to both like minimize impacts before this golden spike, wherever it goes, or yeah, so uh it gets complicated and it gets kind of unclear what the best path forward is, but anyway.
SPEAKER_01Well, I have a feeling that in the in the coming months the debate is going to be settled whether or not we are in favor of it or not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I it's uh it seems that way. There's been a proposal on the table, at least, and I'm sure we'll get some more clarity uh what the the group of stratigraphers think who make these decisions.
SPEAKER_01So I wonder if this will be as big of a deal as it was when you know the astronomers decided to demote Pluto.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness, talk about your meltdown central. Yeah, I forgot about that. Wow, that was uh that was a big deal. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Oh, hey, you know what? I got a gift from a student last year in my astronomy class, and it was a mug, and it says, I date back to the time when there were nine planets.
SPEAKER_00That's a good one. That's a good one. And very clever. Uh when was that? When was that like 2000? Oh, early 2000s, yeah. Yeah, it was I I was in like high school or early college, I think, when that happened. Yeah, that was Meltdown Central, though. I remember it was everybody's in a big uproar.
SPEAKER_01It still is. People are passionate. Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, we should talk to Jackie Faraday about that. We haven't had her on in the podcast in a while. That's true. Should ask her about what her thoughts are about Pluto, that'd be fun. I'm sure she'd have she'd have opinions. Well informed and very thoughtful opinions.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's that's a good point. That's a good point.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Hey, Chris, I think that's a wrap on the Anthropocene in Crawford Lake. And you can follow us on all the social media platforms or at Planet Geocast. Send us an email, planetgeocast at gmail.com. We love those questions. Leave us a rating and a review on your podcast platform and head over to our website, planetgeocast.com. There you can subscribe, follow us, learn more, and support the podcast. We love it when that happens. And also go to our mobile app, just type in Camp Geo into your app store, and you can download our mobile app where you can get access to Camp Geo, all the images, all the visuals, all the basics of geoscience in a very course like audio book like platform with all the visuals you need. We also have the Yellowstone Geology Guide there as well. Cheers. Peace.