Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965
Anthropogenic activity is now recognised as having profoundly and permanently altered the Earth system, suggesting we have entered a human-dominated geological epoch, the ‘Anthropocene’. To formally define the onset of the Anthropocene, a synchronous global signature within geological-forming materi...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5818508 2023-05-15T18:25:23+02:00 Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 Turney, Chris S. M. Palmer, Jonathan Maslin, Mark A. Hogg, Alan Fogwill, Christopher J. Southon, John Fenwick, Pavla Helle, Gerhard Wilmshurst, Janet M. McGlone, Matt Bronk Ramsey, Christopher Thomas, Zoë Lipson, Mathew Beaven, Brent Jones, Richard T. Andrews, Oliver Hua, Quan 2018-02-19 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818508/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459648 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818508/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2018 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 2018-03-04T01:34:58Z Anthropogenic activity is now recognised as having profoundly and permanently altered the Earth system, suggesting we have entered a human-dominated geological epoch, the ‘Anthropocene’. To formally define the onset of the Anthropocene, a synchronous global signature within geological-forming materials is required. Here we report a series of precisely-dated tree-ring records from Campbell Island (Southern Ocean) that capture peak atmospheric radiocarbon (14C) resulting from Northern Hemisphere-dominated thermonuclear bomb tests during the 1950s and 1960s. The only alien tree on the island, a Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), allows us to seasonally-resolve Southern Hemisphere atmospheric 14C, demonstrating the ‘bomb peak’ in this remote and pristine location occurred in the last-quarter of 1965 (October-December), coincident with the broader changes associated with the post-World War II ‘Great Acceleration’ in industrial capacity and consumption. Our findings provide a precisely-resolved potential Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) or ‘golden spike’, marking the onset of the Anthropocene Epoch. Text Southern Ocean PubMed Central (PMC) Bomb Peak ENVELOPE(169.250,169.250,-77.533,-77.533) Campbell Island ENVELOPE(169.500,169.500,-52.500,-52.500) Southern Ocean Scientific Reports 8 1 |
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Article Turney, Chris S. M. Palmer, Jonathan Maslin, Mark A. Hogg, Alan Fogwill, Christopher J. Southon, John Fenwick, Pavla Helle, Gerhard Wilmshurst, Janet M. McGlone, Matt Bronk Ramsey, Christopher Thomas, Zoë Lipson, Mathew Beaven, Brent Jones, Richard T. Andrews, Oliver Hua, Quan Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |
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Article |
description |
Anthropogenic activity is now recognised as having profoundly and permanently altered the Earth system, suggesting we have entered a human-dominated geological epoch, the ‘Anthropocene’. To formally define the onset of the Anthropocene, a synchronous global signature within geological-forming materials is required. Here we report a series of precisely-dated tree-ring records from Campbell Island (Southern Ocean) that capture peak atmospheric radiocarbon (14C) resulting from Northern Hemisphere-dominated thermonuclear bomb tests during the 1950s and 1960s. The only alien tree on the island, a Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), allows us to seasonally-resolve Southern Hemisphere atmospheric 14C, demonstrating the ‘bomb peak’ in this remote and pristine location occurred in the last-quarter of 1965 (October-December), coincident with the broader changes associated with the post-World War II ‘Great Acceleration’ in industrial capacity and consumption. Our findings provide a precisely-resolved potential Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) or ‘golden spike’, marking the onset of the Anthropocene Epoch. |
format |
Text |
author |
Turney, Chris S. M. Palmer, Jonathan Maslin, Mark A. Hogg, Alan Fogwill, Christopher J. Southon, John Fenwick, Pavla Helle, Gerhard Wilmshurst, Janet M. McGlone, Matt Bronk Ramsey, Christopher Thomas, Zoë Lipson, Mathew Beaven, Brent Jones, Richard T. Andrews, Oliver Hua, Quan |
author_facet |
Turney, Chris S. M. Palmer, Jonathan Maslin, Mark A. Hogg, Alan Fogwill, Christopher J. Southon, John Fenwick, Pavla Helle, Gerhard Wilmshurst, Janet M. McGlone, Matt Bronk Ramsey, Christopher Thomas, Zoë Lipson, Mathew Beaven, Brent Jones, Richard T. Andrews, Oliver Hua, Quan |
author_sort |
Turney, Chris S. M. |
title |
Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |
title_short |
Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |
title_full |
Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |
title_fullStr |
Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |
title_sort |
global peak in atmospheric radiocarbon provides a potential definition for the onset of the anthropocene epoch in 1965 |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818508/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459648 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(169.250,169.250,-77.533,-77.533) ENVELOPE(169.500,169.500,-52.500,-52.500) |
geographic |
Bomb Peak Campbell Island Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Bomb Peak Campbell Island Southern Ocean |
genre |
Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818508/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 |
container_title |
Scientific Reports |
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8 |
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1 |
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1766206819215081472 |