Scientific Reports (Feb 2018)

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

  • Chris S. M. Turney,
  • Jonathan Palmer,
  • Mark A. Maslin,
  • Alan Hogg,
  • Christopher J. Fogwill,
  • John Southon,
  • Pavla Fenwick,
  • Gerhard Helle,
  • Janet M. Wilmshurst,
  • Matt McGlone,
  • Christopher Bronk Ramsey,
  • Zoë Thomas,
  • Mathew Lipson,
  • Brent Beaven,
  • Richard T. Jones,
  • Oliver Andrews,
  • Quan Hua

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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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 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.