Clément Poirier

TL;DR: C climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores, Combined with deposits of new materials and radionuclides, as well as human-caused modification of sedimentary processes, the Anthropocene stands alone stratigraphically as a new epoch beginning sometime in the mid–20th century.

TL;DR: In this article, the boundary of the Anthropocene geological time interval as an epoch is defined as the time of the first nuclear bomb explosion, on July 16th 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico; additional bombs were detonated at the average rate of one every 9.6 days until 1988 with attendant worldwide fallout easily identifiable in the chemostratigraphic record.

TL;DR: In this article, the suitability of different stratified palaeoenvironmental settings and facies as potential hosts for a candidate GSSP and auxiliary sections, and the relevant stratigraphical markers for correlation are evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses in this respect.

TL;DR: Growth in fundamental drivers (energy use, economic productivity, and population) can provide quantitative indications of the proposed boundary between the Holocene Epoch and the Anthropocene as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: The authors argue that the Anthropocene is a functional term that has firm geological grounding in a well-characterized stratigraphic record, although often lithologically thin, is laterally extensive, rich in detail and already reflects substantial elapsed (and in part irreversible) change to the Earth System that is comparable to or greater in magnitude than that of previous epoch-scale transitions.