Anthropocene: new documentary shows research in Bahia – 07/11/2023 – Environment

The Anthropocene, a proposal for a new geological epoch that would be marked by human activity, has been suggested as a “golden spike”, or reference point, for study and comparison with other places in the world. It is Lake Crawford, in Canada, which concentrates thousands of years of information in layers of mud, including combustion and radioactive particles from the 1950s —a point that, according to the researchers, characterizes the beginning of the human era.

One of the reasons for choosing elements such as those from nuclear tests is that they were spread around the world by human action, something that would not occur naturally. The lake in Ontario was announced at a conference in Berlin on Tuesday afternoon by the Anthropocene working group, part of the International Commission on Stratigraphy.

Almost 5,000 kilometers away, Brazilian scientists also found remnants of these experiments. A collection of mud in the region of Caravelas, on the coast of Bahia, showed traces of Cesium-137, material used in tests with nuclear bombs.

These indications —found even in places far from nuclear test sites (such as Caravelas and Lake Crawford)— reinforce the human mark on Earth, to the point of establishing a new geological epoch, which would replace the current Holocene, according to researchers.

Inaugurating this epoch, beyond the scientific meaning, serves as a warning for the decisions that humanity has taken to live on a planet that is already facing significant climate changes, emphasize the scientists. Deforestation, fires and the use of fossil fuels have also left man’s footprint on the planet.

This is what the documentary “A Era dos Humanos” shows, a production by Grupo Storm with a presentation by actor Marcos Palmeira, which hits theaters on Amazon Day, September 5th. In October, the film will be divided into episodes and shown on the Globoplay platform.

According to director Iara Cardoso, who also wrote the script, the production lasted three months of travel between the coast and other regions of the country, such as the Amazon, from dense forest to burned areas.

The samples collected in the film are from a research on evidence of the Anthropocene that had the participation of researchers from São Paulo, Pará, Pernambuco, Paraná and Uruguay. For ten years the group has been collecting in several areas — Caravelas, in Bahia, is one of them. One of the authors of the research featured in the film is Rubens Figueira, from the USP Oceanographic Institute.

“The same measurements made in Canada were made here in Caravelas with Rubens, and that shows how close this subject is to us”, says Cardoso.