Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadigel people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. Happy Monday.
Speaker 2: It's the twenty first of August. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 3: I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 2: You may not have heard of Crawford Lake in Canada
Speaker 2: because at first glance it's really just a sinkhole. But
Speaker 2: for those in the know, and you're about to be
Speaker 2: in the know, this little body of water holds the
Speaker 2: key to understanding humanity's impact on the planet, from hydrogen
Speaker 2: bomb tests to the use of fossil fuels. In today's
Speaker 2: deep Dive, tda's deputy editor, Emma Gillespie is going to
Speaker 2: share with us what secrets have been discovered so far
Speaker 2: and what it all means for humanity. But first, here's
Speaker 2: the headlines. Well, after over a month of magnificent football.
Speaker 2: We have a new world champion. The final of the
Speaker 2: fee for Women's World Cup was held in Sydney last
Speaker 2: night and Spain beat England one nil to take out
Speaker 2: their first ever Women's World Cup. There was a first
Speaker 2: half goal to Spain and whilst England tried their very
Speaker 2: best through a very edgy and extended overtime to try
Speaker 2: and claw one back, sending the game into extra time,
Speaker 2: they were unsuccessful. The Spaniards are deserved winners of the trophy.
Speaker 3: In absolutely terrifying news, up to forty new species of
Speaker 3: the wishbone spider have been discovered in Queensland. The Queensland
Speaker 3: Museum says research has collected one hundred and thirty six
Speaker 3: spider specimens across eastern Australia over the last six months.
Speaker 3: Wishbone spiders are burrowing spiders found in dry and tropical
Speaker 3: regions of Australia. It's hoped the discoveries will help protect
Speaker 3: the spiders into the future.
Speaker 2: A new variant of COVID nineteen has now spread to
Speaker 2: four countries, that's the UK, US, Israel and Denmark, with
Speaker 2: the WHO classifying it as a variant under monitoring, which
Speaker 2: means it will be tracked globally. Some scientists are concerned
Speaker 2: with the level of mutation found in this particular strain. However,
Speaker 2: they do not expect similar levels of disease and death
Speaker 2: as with the alpha, delta or omicron variants. This variant
Speaker 2: is nicknamed the pirilla variant and the good News.
Speaker 3: The A League Women's competition has announced a special standalone
Speaker 3: celebration to mark its opening round. The competition will start
Speaker 3: a week before the men's and for the first time
Speaker 3: in history, the women's season will last for twenty two games.
Speaker 3: The move is aimed at attracting more fans to A
Speaker 3: League games. Following the Matilda success at the.
Speaker 2: World Cup, scientists have found evidence that human activity has
Speaker 2: fundamentally altered the Earth in such a significant way that
Speaker 2: we might have actually entered a new geological period. It's
Speaker 2: called the anthroposcene epoch. Oh my gosh. To make sense
Speaker 2: of what that means and why we should care, I've
Speaker 2: got someone new on the microphone for you, Emma Gillespie,
Speaker 2: Deputy editor at The Daily OS. Welcome to your pod debut.
Speaker 4: Hello, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: It's so fantastic to have you on to talk about
Speaker 2: your specialty area geological periods. So for starters, what is
Speaker 2: an epoch?
Speaker 4: For starters? I just wanted on the record that I
Speaker 4: am not a geologist. I just happen to be wanting
Speaker 4: to share the news with you. So an epoch, Sam
Speaker 4: is It's kind of hard to understand, but please stay
Speaker 4: with me. The history of the Earth, right, it spans
Speaker 4: four point five billion years, and modern humans i e.
Speaker 4: Us only emerged as a species around two hundred thousand
Speaker 4: years ago, so in this game of things, we actually
Speaker 4: haven't really been here here for that long, but our
Speaker 4: actions have already made a huge impact on the planet.
Speaker 4: So it's hard to comprehend what that means, what a
Speaker 4: thousand years is, let alone what a billion years looks like.
Speaker 4: But thankfully we have these clever people called geologists to
Speaker 4: explain and unpack that for us.
Speaker 2: They're rock stars.
Speaker 4: They are rock stars. Geologists are scientists to yep. They
Speaker 4: study rocks, minerals, that kind of thing, and they work
Speaker 4: to make sense of the billions of years of history
Speaker 4: of the Earth. So to make sense of that enormous
Speaker 4: amount of time, they divide the timeline of our history
Speaker 4: into sections or epochs, So finding records embedded in the
Speaker 4: Earth helps geologists pinpoint the beginning of new epochs, those
Speaker 4: sections marked by major changes to the Earth's atmosphere, biology,
Speaker 4: and geology. Now, that's all well and good, but in
Speaker 4: everyday terms, eld to think of epochs like this. If
Speaker 4: you imagine that we're all reduced to rubble, the buildings
Speaker 4: around us, the world that we live in and as
Speaker 4: we know it, are all just dust.
Speaker 2: We're gone, Happy Monday.
Speaker 4: Happy Monday. In the future, what would explorers of Earth
Speaker 4: discover about our way of life today? So without us here,
Speaker 4: geology actually offers a tangible representation of our actions, our life,
Speaker 4: the way that we lived.
Speaker 2: I always get a little bit overwhelmed when we're talking
Speaker 2: about this kind of you know, long term impact on
Speaker 2: the planet.
Speaker 4: Existence is completely fair enough, it's overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Why do scientists think that we've entered a new epoch?
Speaker 2: But also more than that, why should I care that
Speaker 2: we've entered a new epoch?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really good question. So it starts in Canada,
Speaker 4: this story where scientists claim that they've discovered evidence of
Speaker 4: the beginning of what they refer to as the anthroposcene epoch,
Speaker 4: the age of humans. And this is a big deal
Speaker 4: because it means that we have had a physical impact
Speaker 4: that's been so significant it's pushed the planet into this
Speaker 4: new phase, rather than a new epoch being caused by
Speaker 4: a natural phenomenon like an asteroid strike.
Speaker 3: So the Earth is.
Speaker 4: Being rapidly transformed, especially by the impact of human caused
Speaker 4: climate change. But now we have a definitive fingerprint of
Speaker 4: that human impact on Earth's history in our geology, and.
Speaker 2: I imagine that can't be undone that can't be wound back.
Speaker 4: We can't wind back the clock, but we can take
Speaker 4: the knowledge from this discovery forward into understanding, you know,
Speaker 4: how to care for the planet moving forward. But there's
Speaker 4: actually some beef in the science community about this. Some
Speaker 4: people say that we're still in the Holocene epoch that
Speaker 4: began more than ten thousand years ago after the last
Speaker 4: major ice age, But much of the science community believe
Speaker 4: that we have been in this anthroposcene epoch for some
Speaker 4: time now, And like I said, that is really significant
Speaker 4: because it means that we've had such a dramatic physical
Speaker 4: impact on the makeup of planet Earth that, unlike other
Speaker 4: epochs that lasted you know, millions of years, we have
Speaker 4: triggered a new one within a relatively short period of time.
Speaker 2: Right, So we've brought this one on prematurely, and then
Speaker 2: I'm sure if we continue to behave in the way
Speaker 2: that we are, the next one could come even sooner.
Speaker 2: Exactly kind of the theory. So if I was a geologist,
Speaker 2: how would I go about actually determining if we've moved
Speaker 2: from one epoch to another.
Speaker 4: So the idea that we have entered the anthropscene epoch
Speaker 4: is pretty much thanks to a chunk of mud from
Speaker 4: this lake in Canada. That's the reason why we're having
Speaker 4: this conversation right now. So the Anthroposcene Working Group are
Speaker 4: a collective of international scientists and UNI researchers, and they
Speaker 4: recently claim to have discovered this evidence in a small
Speaker 4: body of water called Crawford Lake west of Toronto in Canada.
Speaker 4: This is a really really deep body of water, but
Speaker 4: it's pretty tiny on the map. It's essentially a sinkhole.
Speaker 4: But this is the site that's been considered ground zero
Speaker 4: for this new epoch.
Speaker 2: Is that for any particular reason.
Speaker 4: So a lake provides a really good opportunity to look
Speaker 4: at the particles of our atmosphere because if you think
Speaker 4: about the nature of a body of water. Particles sink
Speaker 4: on the top of the lake and then they settle
Speaker 4: at the bottom the lake floor, forming layers of sediment.
Speaker 4: So we're talking about solid material from somewhere else that
Speaker 4: is floating around in the atmosphere, settles on a lake
Speaker 4: and sinks to the lake floor. So sediment, which is
Speaker 4: basically mud in this instance, and sediment's actually a really
Speaker 4: helpful way for geologists to record changing environmental conditions over time.
Speaker 4: I think it's like a beautiful rainbow cake. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: And every layer of the cake is a different indicator
Speaker 4: of the geology in the sediment, environmental markers that show
Speaker 4: us what was really present in the atmosphere at a
Speaker 4: particular time.
Speaker 2: So we've got this chocolate mud cake and it's got
Speaker 2: different layers, What then, does that tell us about the
Speaker 2: last few decades. Let's leave the ten thousand years even alone.
Speaker 2: What is to tell us about the last forty fifty years?
Speaker 4: So from this big chunk of mud cake, scientists were
Speaker 4: able to document what they call a golden spike among
Speaker 4: the layers of sediment. So what that means is a
Speaker 4: dramatic and at least in geological terms, sudden change in
Speaker 4: the conditions of the Earth. These layers contained various human
Speaker 4: made materials such as microplastics, particles from fossil fuel burning,
Speaker 4: and even plutonium from bomb testing in the fifties.
Speaker 2: Wow, so there's evidence of that in the mud.
Speaker 4: Exactly, Yes, and that's from a time known as the
Speaker 4: Great Acceleration when things really ramped up across fossil fuel combustion,
Speaker 4: nitrates and pesticides from agriculture, nuclear testing, plastics production, all
Speaker 4: that kind of thing. And the researchers argue that this
Speaker 4: discovery pretty much definitively supports this notion of a new
Speaker 4: epoch that has been floating around for a while, that
Speaker 4: irreversible changes to the planet's ecosystem have been caused by
Speaker 4: human activities.
Speaker 2: So, going back to that scientific debate that you talked
Speaker 2: about at the beginning, it does seem that this mudge
Speaker 2: in a lake in Canada is giving the idea that
Speaker 2: we're in a new epoch some more weight. What happens
Speaker 2: from here.
Speaker 4: So this group who found the sediment and the layers,
Speaker 4: they submit their discovery now to the International Union of
Speaker 4: Geological Sciences. These guys are the scientific body responsible for
Speaker 4: naming geological chapters. I tell you there's a scientific body
Speaker 4: for everything and everyone, and they're the people that will
Speaker 4: decide if we are officially in the anthroposcene epoch.
Speaker 2: So what an incredible room to be in. You have
Speaker 2: that meeting, What.
Speaker 4: A powerful room. It's up to them to literally officially
Speaker 4: recognize that, Yep, it's happened, we're in the anthroposcene epog.
Speaker 4: But what also comes from this SAM is this reinforcement
Speaker 4: that human activity is impacting the world around us, and
Speaker 4: it can help scientists forecast what that means for the future. So,
Speaker 4: you know, we're constantly talking about these crises of biodiversity loss,
Speaker 4: over population, climate change, and it can all sound like
Speaker 4: doom and gloom. But what we have here is kind
Speaker 4: of a reference point for scientists to understand the trajectory,
Speaker 4: the path that we're on. And there is a school
Speaker 4: of thought in science that you know, it's important to
Speaker 4: acknowledge the mistakes of the past, where we've come from,
Speaker 4: what's gone wrong, in order to kind of get back
Speaker 4: on track to say, like we can return the Earth
Speaker 4: maybe not to pristine condition, but epox before our arrival
Speaker 4: lasted millions of years. There's no reason why we can't
Speaker 4: go back to Epoch's lasting millions more, but we have
Speaker 4: to come to a place where the science community agrees
Speaker 4: where we're at. So it's expected that we'll get a
Speaker 4: final decision about whether or not we really are in
Speaker 4: the anthropist scene by the end of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Well, Emma, thanks so much for joining us on Daily OS.
Speaker 2: It's nice that we've entered the Emma era of the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, and thank
Speaker 4: you for sticking with me. If you're still listening, just
Speaker 4: know I appreciate it. I know this is dance stuff.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us for that very very very very
Speaker 2: deep dive see what I did there on the Daily
Speaker 2: OS today. If you learn something from today's episode, or
Speaker 2: you've got some more weird and wonderful ways that we
Speaker 2: can explain the news to you, don't forget to leave
Speaker 2: a comment in Spotify, just in that little question box.
Speaker 2: We'll speak to you tomorrow. Till then, have a fantastic
Speaker 2: start to the week.