Stratigraphy

The Anthropocene Project. An Encyclopedia

Layer by layer . . . From a time far before our own, from a time that seems inconceivable—too many zeros. A wink of an eye in a human lifetime, that is the human being in the time of the planet. Layers that hide fossils. Information about the past. Into which we can now penetrate using technology to deposit garbage, to place cables or to obtain raw materials. In the meantime, an additional layer is placed over all, a layer of the human. Not just clay but since 1945 of plastic, car parts, and gas tanks, acid rain and radioactive materials with unmistakable human signatures. Petrified rock memories. Human rock. Techno fossils. Future fossils. Trace fossils. Most deposited close to those in the South, that like in 1789 in France belong to the lower political and social strata. Nowadays mostly represented by a wrong passport. Still they sincerely protect the upper classes from even more CO2 emissions, so we hear. However, their birth rate remains a problem. Recalcitrant research and the prognoses as well. Back to academia: Stratigraphically, layer by layer, key geologists expect to have gathered the decisive evidence that we live in the Anthropocene by 2016. Given their success we can officially name the era and survey the Age of the Anthropocene as a rock hard fact.