A geological science professor at Cal State Long Beach is reviewing a new geological time scale, called Anthropocene, to represent climate change.
As chair of the International Commission on Statigraphy (ICS), Professor Stanley Finney has to approve the scale for it to be scientifically recognized.
The ICS has to define the start and end dates of massive geological shifts. They do this based on sedimentation levels and the fossils found within them.
The ICS divides the world’s timeline into eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages.
Humans were said to live in the Quaternary period, more specifically in the Holocene epoch, until now.
In 2002, Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize winning scientist, began arguing that the Holocene epoch had ended and that we have all been living in what he dubbed the “Anthropocene.”
In 2007, a group of stratigraphers in England decided to push for the formal creation of a new time scale that recognizes the impact of human development, although what type of scale that is has not yet been decided.
In a university press release, Finney said his job is to “set the procedure” that determines whether the term has enough scientific merit to warrant the new designation.
“The people who are promoting it are giving all the reasons for it, but my concern is that they critically look at it,” Finney said in the press release.
In an interview with the Daily 49er, Finney said he was worried that the new word is being pushed prematurely and possibly for the wrong reasons.
He said that the term has yet to be defined precisely in terms of an approximate starting point or categorical magnitude in the time scale.
Finney said he loved the travel and the mystery of piecing together visual clues to create geological histories, comparing it to being “like a detective.”
“It offered travel and adventure and fun,” he said. “And I had the aptitude for it. It’s different then say, math or physics or chemistry in that its, geology can be more subjective, more visual.”
Finney said he’s traveled all over the world prospecting for natural resources and studying geological formations.
Over the course of his professional career, Finney said he’s traveled to Argentina, Canada, Europe and China, among other places.
“It just opens you up to the entire world,” he said, “It opens you up to a life of fun and adventure.”
Finney said students looking for their own niche should explore the world and learn everything they can.
“Get out of town!” Finney advised. “You have to be willing to seize a problem, not just do something because someone says do it. You have to take a real interest and make it your problem.”
A National Geographic article written by Elizabeth Kolbert published in March examines the arguments for the new designation.
In the article, Kolbert writes that our most lasting geological impacts may not be the ruins of our cities or our petrified cultural artifacts, but rather in the composition and layering of soil.
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