Soil in the Anthropocene

With scholars deliberating a new name for our geologic epoch, i.e., the Anthropocene, soil scientists whether biologists, chemists, or physicists are documenting significant changes accruing in a majority of Earth's soils. Such global soil changes interact with the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere (i.e., Earth's Critical Zone), and these developments are significantly impacting the Earth's stratigraphic record as well. In effect, soil scientists study such global soil changes in a science of anthropedology, which leads directly to the need to transform pedostratigraphyinto an anthro-pedostratigraphy, a science that explores how global soil change alters Earth's litho-, bio-, and chemostratigraphy. These developments reinforce perspectives that the planet is indeed crossing into the Anthropocene.

Duke Scholars

Author Daniel D. Richter Earth and Climate Sciences