A group of international scientists have proposed marking July 16, 1945, the date of the world's first nuclear test, to be the official start date of Earth's new epoch.
Anthropocene has been the name of our planet's new epoch that began when human activities started affecting the ecosystems. But scientists have long debated its official start date until 15 years later, they proposed that it should be July 16, 1945. The proposed date was signed by 26 members of the Anthropocene Working Group.
Originally, scientists believed that Anthropocene have started thousands of years ago when humans learned to cultivate lands, or during the Industrial Revolution when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport, and technology tremendously affected human lives.
But now scientists believe that the nuclear test the United States conducted on July 16, 1945 at Trinity, Los Alamos initiated changes in Earth's entire system that has led to population growth, increased carbon emissions, species extinction, changes in Earth's movement, and production of novel materials such as concrete, plastics, and metals. To date, traces of the radiation emitted by the first atomic bomb are still detected in some places on the planet.
"Like any geological boundary, it is not a perfect marker – levels of global radiation really rose in the early 1950s, as salvoes of bomb tests took place. But it may be the optimal way to resolve the multiple lines of evidence on human-driven planetary change. Time - and much more discussion - will tell," said Dr Jan Zalasiewicz, of the University of Leicester's Department of Geology and Chair of the Anthropocene Working Group, in a press release.
The international team will gather more evidence to support the date proposal declaring July 16, 1945 the official start date of Anthropocene. A decision should be made by 2016.
Details of the proposal were published in the Jan. 12 issue of Quaternary International.
