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1 results

  • Chapter 9 - Stratigraphy: Finding Global Markers in a Small Canadian Lake

  • from Part Two - One Anthropocene; Many Stories
  • Edited by Julia Adeney Thomas, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book:
    Altered Earth
    Published online:
    24 March 2022
    Print publication:
    31 March 2022, pp 196-208

  • Summary

    After the 2019 Anthropocene Working Group vote to propose the Anthropocene as a geological epoch, the search began for a sequence of rock strata that could serve as the new epoch's marker. Canada's Crawford Lake has many characteristics that make it a potential candidate for this marker (known as the "geologic section," GSSP, or, more colloquially, the "golden spike.") This small, deep lake fills a karstic sinkhole on the Niagara Escarpment. The undisturbed sediment deep beneath its waters contains clear couplets called varves deposited seasonally (much like tree rings), recording annual environmental change. Core samples taken from the lake bottom tell the story of human disruption. Evidence of a nearby Iroquoian village, dating to the 13th – 15th century, illustrates human impact prior to the mid-20th century, but the magnitude of human impact in the mid-20th century is far greater, as the varves clearly show. We can read evidence of the Anthropocene in lake bottom deposits.