HHMI BioInteractive - Click and Learn - The Anthropocene: Human Impact on the Environment

The Anthropocene: Human Impact on the Environment

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Epochs

Every geologic epoch is defined by a distinct boundary in the rock strata characterized by a particular marker, such as a chemical signal—like the high concentration of the element iridium produced when an asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago, leading to a mass extinction—or a change in fossils and sediments. The more distinct and more global the marker, the easier it is to define the epoch.

Scientists are considering what the most useful markers for the beginning of the Anthropocene will be. Candidates include roads, microplastics, mercury from air pollution, and radionuclides from nuclear weapons testing.

Impacts

Humans impact the environment in many different ways; this interactive shows 10 examples. Press on the labels or the graphs to get a detailed view as well as sources for the data.

Atmosphere

Air pollution has many components, like the emission of greenhouse gases that lead to climate change. Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and changes in land use; nitrous oxide from the increased use of fertilizers; and methane from irrigated rice agriculture, cattle, and landfills are changing climate at a rate faster than most changes seen in the geologic record.

Carbon Dioxide
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/
• Neftel, A., E. Moor, H. Oeschger, and B. Stauffer. 1985. Evidence from polar ice cores for the increase in atmospheric CO₂ in the past two centuries. Nature 315:45-47.
• Friedli, H., H. Lötscher, H. Oeschger, U. Siegenthaler, and B. Stauffer. 1986. Ice core record of ¹³C/¹²C ratio of atmospheric CO₂ in the past two centuries. Nature 324:237-38.
Nitrous Oxide
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/no.html
Methane
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/methane.html
• Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010. Law Dome Ice Core 2000-Year CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O Data. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series # 2010-070. NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

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Biodiversity

Almost 900 species have gone extinct in the past 500 years and the pace of extinctions has greatly accelerated in the past few decades, perhaps trending toward a mass extinction.

Data source:
• Endangered Species International. 2009.
• IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2014.3

Cities

More than 7 billion people inhabit the planet. Their demands for land, water, food, and energy are reshaping the planet.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL/countries

Coastal Habitats

Coastal waters and nearshore ecosystems are vulnerable to pollution such as agricultural runoff, which carries nitrogen and phosphorus into coastal waters that feed plankton blooms that end up suffocating fish and shellfish. Industrial pollutants such as toxic heavy metals and organic compounds can also be deadly to coastal life.

Past data and future projections:
Mackenzie, F. T., Ver, L. M., & Lerman, A. (2002). Century-scale nitrogen and phosphorus controls of the carbon cycle. Chemical Geology, 190(1), 13–32.

Farms

Natural ecosystems are converted to managed agricultural land in order to feed the world. This results in release of carbon to the atmosphere and a loss of biodiversity.

1750-1960 data (from published graph):
• Singarayer, J. S., & Davies-Barnard, T. (2012). Regional climate change mitigation with crops: context and assessment. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 370, 4301-4316. DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2012.0010.
• 1961-2011 data: FOASTAT

Forests

Clearing native forests for agriculture or other human development reduces biodiversity and fragments habitats, impeding the ability of species to change their geographic ranges to adapt to global warming.

Data source: Williams 2003, FAO 2010
• FAO (2010). Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 – main report. FAO Forestry Paper 163, Rome. www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1757e/i1757e00.htm
• Williams, M. (2003). Deforesting the earth: from prehistory to global crisis. University of Chicago Press.

Invasive Species

One unintended consequence of extensive global trade and travel is the rapid spread of non-native species across many localities. Invasive species change the species makeup of the environment, which will be detectable as fossils in the future.

Mining

Humans literally reshape the Earth through mining and construction, causing erosion and polluting waterways. These activities also disrupt natural geochemical cycles of metallic elements, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

Ocean

Overfishing depletes fish populations. Many traditional fisheries such as the Atlantic cod have collapsed, causing immediate economic hardship, and also reverberating throughout the marine ecosystem, harming numerous other species.

http://www.seaaroundus.org/global/1/101.aspx

Water Use

Humans have drastically altered rivers and watersheds all over the world. More than half of all available fresh water is being used for agricultural, industrial, and municipal uses, drastically changing seasonal runoff patterns and downstream ecosystems.

Global Reservoir and Dam Database:
http://www.gwsp.org/products/grand-database.html
Wisser, D., Frolking, S., Hagen, S., & Bierkens, M. F. (2013). Beyond peak reservoir storage? A global estimate of declining water storage capacity in large reservoirs. Water Resources Research, 49(9), 5732–5739. doi:10.1002/wrcr.20452

Anthropocene Epoch

Begins with: Either the start of industrialization around 1750 or the start of widespread globalization around 1950. The start of this epoch is the subject of active scientific debate.
Characterized by: Changes in landscape, ocean and atmospheric chemistry, species extinctions and invasions

Holocene Epoch

Begins with: End of the last Ice Age
Characterized by: Modern animal species, modern landscape

Pleistocene Epoch

Begins with: Start of Ice Ages affecting both hemispheres of Earth
Characterized by: Ice Age animals, e.g., saber-toothed tiger, mammoth

Introduction

Human activities are reshaping planet Earth in profound ways. Some activities, such as building dams, cutting forests, and converting natural lands into agricultural lands, directly affect the environment. But other effects of human activities are indirect, such as climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss resulting from taking over wild habitats, and altered coastal environments through increased agricultural runoff.

These changes have led scientists to propose a new geologic epoch named the Anthropocene, marked by extensive human impacts on the environment.

Every geologic epoch has distinguishing characteristics that often show up in the fossil record. What will characterize the fossil record of the Anthropocene? Our actions could determine whether the epoch is ultimately marked by diminishing biodiversity or even a mass extinction.

Use this interactive to explore key human impacts on the environment and what effects they have had over time. (For instructions on how to use the interactive, press on the “Help” tab.)

Introduction

Origin of Tetrapods: Key Concepts

There are many examples of fossils of transitional forms originally proposed by Darwin as an evidence for evolution.

Major evolutionary change requires many small steps. When fish colonized land and became tetrapods, there were many intermediate forms that had a mix of characteristics of both fish and tetrapods.

Two pairs of fins in fish evolved to become two pairs of limbs in tetrapods.

Characteristics that appeared during the transition from water to land also include the loss of gills and scales, and the gain of a sturdy ribcage, lungs, a neck, and hip bones.

Key Concepts

Credits

Executive Producer

Dennis Liu, PhD, HHMI

Producers

Satoshi Amagai, PhD, HHMI
Fabian de Kok-Mercado, MA, CMI, HHMI
Mark Nielsen, PhD, HHMI

Writers

Satoshi Amagai, PhD, HHMI
Mark Nielsen, PhD, HHMI

Additional Writing and Editing

Sandra Blumenrath, PhD, HHMI
Laura Bonetta, PhD, HHMI

Concept Development

Fabian de Kok-Mercado, MA, CMI, HHMI

Interface and Graphic Design

Bill Pietsch, A3MG

Illustration

Tom Webster, Lineworks, Inc.

Bill Pietsch, A3MG

Fabian de Kok-Mercado, MA, CMI, HHMI

Interactive Programming

Davey Thomas and Bill Pietsch, A3MG

Photographs

Impacts, Invasive Species, Mining, Anthropocene, Holocene: Thinkstock

Epochs: Strata from the film "The Day The Mesozoic Died"

Credits

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Help

The column on the left-hand side of the screen lists different human impacts on the environment and geologic time in epochs.

To see a particular impact on the environment or an epoch, press the square to the right of the feature’s name and a check mark will appear. To remove it, press the check mark. All the features in a particular category (i.e., Impacts) can be selected by pressing the square next to the category name. To learn about a particular feature, press the feature’s name. You can also show and remove the check marks by pressing on corresponding areas of the illustration.

Help

Version 1.1
Updated on 03/27/19

Impacts

Atmosphere

Biodiversity

Cities

Coastal Habitats

Farms

Forests

Invasive Species

Mining

Ocean

Water Use

Epochs

Anthropocene

Holocene

Pleistocene

Introduction

Credits

Help

Introduction

Credits

Help