Is the definition of the Anthropocene a political question for and within the geosciences?

The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) was founded in 2009 to investigate the potential of the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic unit of the Geological Time Scale. After more than 14 years of work, many key publications and fierce discussions both within and outside the AWG, and several rounds of voting, the AWG concluded by great majority that the Anthropocene concept of Crutzen (2002) has stratigraphic reality and that a formal GSSP definition is pragmatic and suitable at the mid-twentieth century, coincident with the Great Acceleration of Earth System Sciences. The resulting  GSSP proposal  is located in Crawford Lake (Canada) sediment core with the base of the Anthropocene marked by an upturn in plutonium coincident with autumn 1952.  However, during the years of AWG investigations, criticisms from outside and a minority group within the AWG opposed to the majority consensus and published results of the AWG (see Zalasiewicz et al., in press), have undermined the significance, importance and usefulness of the Anthropocene as a (chrono)stratigraphic unit. However, beyond its debated geological implications but in it’s wider interdisciplinary and popular context, the term has evolved into a symbol emblematic of global change, the current climate, and ecological crisis. An argument of prominent geoscientists is that the AWG is politically and not scientifically motivated when dealing with the Anthropocene. Despite the AWG following established ICS protocols and procedures for stratigraphic working groups and founding their conclusions transparently through publications (e.g. Waters et al., 2016, 2023; Zalasiewicz et al., 2017), a political dimension is implicitly imposed on both AWG members, but also at their critics. To what extent would rejection of the Anthropocene proposal be interpreted outside of the sciences as a rejection of the scale of the current global crises? Research into the Anthropocene by the AWG has resulted in awareness and engagement of involved scientists in a crisis for which geology has some liability, but also in a wider interest of the humanities, media and arts on the stratigraphic work of the AWG. Hence, one may interpret geological research in the Anthropocene as a great and timely societal mission for the geosciences, resulting, hopefully, in a sustainable geological discipline emerging out of its historical linkage with the fossil energy sector.

Crutzen, P.J., 2002. Geology of Mankind. Nature 415: 23.

Waters, C.N. et al., 2016. The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science 351(6269): 137.

Waters, C.N. et al., (Eds.), 2023. Candidate sites and other reference sections for the Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point of the Anthropocene series. The Anthropocene Review 10(1): 3–24.

Zalasiewicz, J. et al., 2017. The Working Group on the Anthropocene: Summary of evidence and interim recommendations. Anthropocene 19: 55–60.

Zalasiewicz, J. et al., in press. The Anthropocene within the Geological Time Scale: analysis of fundamental questions. Episodes.