Feb 12, 2025 07:20 PM
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250...-the-earth
EXCERPTS: Nature has a way of remembering things. Echoes of certain human activities, especially highly-polluting ones, sometimes show up in tree rings, coastal sediments and ecosystems. Arguably, these traces are hints of the Anthropocene, a proposed geological epoch in which humanity is said to have irrevocably, and drastically, altered Earth. Human history, it turns out, is written into the very fabric of our planet – and the life that co-exists here with us.
[...] Siano and his colleagues are predominantly ecologists but they also work with historians. "The land changed because of human impact and also because of historical events," Siano says. When the team analysed the sediment cores from Brest, they also detected a gradual rise in heavy metal pollution as time passed. Younger layers of sediment contained higher volumes of mercury, copper, lead and zinc, for example.
[...] Besides metals, radioactive materials have also found applications in various industries. In Switzerland, for instance, radium was long used to make glow-in-the-dark details on watch faces. Remnants of radium from the watchmaking industry have turned up in landfill sites and buildings in the country.
[...] Siano and his colleagues are now looking further afield in their search for clues of human history embedded in nature. ... in yet more places, says Siano, evidence of everything from oil spills to the development of oyster farms may have been locked away in the sediment. "We have all the material to answer these questions," he says... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Nature has a way of remembering things. Echoes of certain human activities, especially highly-polluting ones, sometimes show up in tree rings, coastal sediments and ecosystems. Arguably, these traces are hints of the Anthropocene, a proposed geological epoch in which humanity is said to have irrevocably, and drastically, altered Earth. Human history, it turns out, is written into the very fabric of our planet – and the life that co-exists here with us.
[...] Siano and his colleagues are predominantly ecologists but they also work with historians. "The land changed because of human impact and also because of historical events," Siano says. When the team analysed the sediment cores from Brest, they also detected a gradual rise in heavy metal pollution as time passed. Younger layers of sediment contained higher volumes of mercury, copper, lead and zinc, for example.
[...] Besides metals, radioactive materials have also found applications in various industries. In Switzerland, for instance, radium was long used to make glow-in-the-dark details on watch faces. Remnants of radium from the watchmaking industry have turned up in landfill sites and buildings in the country.
[...] Siano and his colleagues are now looking further afield in their search for clues of human history embedded in nature. ... in yet more places, says Siano, evidence of everything from oil spills to the development of oyster farms may have been locked away in the sediment. "We have all the material to answer these questions," he says... (MORE - missing details)