Global Peak in Atmospheric Radiocarbon Provides a Potential Definition for the Onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965.

ABSTRACT: 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 i

SUBMITTER: Turney CSM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5818508 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature