Spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) is a form of black carbon produced from burning

fossil fuels A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologica ...

in energy production and

heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

that is thought to provide stratigraphic markers of the human activities that have changed Earth since the 20th century and thus the anthropocene with the unprecedented rise in the industrial carbon intensity. Humans have modified the

carbon cycle The carbon cycle is a part of the biogeochemical cycle where carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of Earth. Other major biogeochemical cycles include the nitrogen cycle and the water cycl ...

, leaving footprints of carbon in the air and the outer earth crust. SCPs – just as other pollution markers of modern human industrial activity like

plutonium Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four ...

microplastics Microplastics are "synthetic solid particles or polymeric matrices, with regular or irregular shape and with size ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm, of either primary or secondary manufacturing origin, which are insoluble in water." Microplastics a ...

, are found in terrestrial and marine

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

s or ice cores in every continent and they have turned up there

isochronous A sequence of events is isochronous if the events occur regularly, or at equal time intervals. The term ''isochronous'' is used in several technical contexts, but usually refers to the primary subject maintaining a constant period or interval ( ...

ly since the 1950s.

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* * * {{cite journal , last=Rose , first=Neil L. , title=Spheroidal Carbonaceous Fly Ash Particles Provide a Globally Synchronous Stratigraphic Marker for the Anthropocene , journal=Environmental Science & Technology , volume=49 , issue=7 , date=2015-04-07 , issn=0013-936X , doi=10.1021/acs.est.5b00543 , doi-access=free , pages=4155–4162 , url=https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.5b00543 , access-date=2025-01-19 Stratigraphy Anthropocene

See also

References

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