There is a much-debated notion in the scientific community, called the "golden spike" or simply the starting point of the "Anthropocene epoch", a period in which humanity started to impact the planet as a force of its own, signaling drastic change across Earth.
DOST-PNRI’s Dr. Angel Bautista VII presents a segment of the ice core containing the I-129 radionuclide signals which they propose as the most probable golden spike indicator of the Anthropocene epoch. (Photo courtesy of DOST-PNRI)
The Philippine Nuclear Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PNRI) shared a recent discovery found in ice which can serve as evidence to establish the so-called golden spike.
Together with The University of Tokyo, RIKEN, Hirosaki University, and Hokkaido University, researchers propose that the beginning of the Anthropocene is best recorded as "nuclear bomb peaks".
There has been much argument on the subject matter beginning in 2009 and has been ongoing for years. A growing consensus within the scientific community is that the most pronounced global start of the Anthropocene is within the mid-20th century. Called the “Great Acceleration,” it is a period of exponential human population, economic, and technological growth at a scale that caused massive changes in the Earth’s environment.
Yet lately, in their quest, scientists found a more fitting golden spike indicator-- iodine-129 (I-129) whose half-life is 15.7 million years, which means that its signals can be found by humans even millions of years into the future.
DOST-PNRI called this "event marker" the one that ushered in a tremendous physical, chemical, or biological change across the planet. Scientists suggest that humanity has become the species that mostly contributed to the change that the planet is undergoing.
"In particular, the scientists found the peaks of the radionuclide iodine-129 or I-129 found in an ice core at the Greenland Southeast Dome site as an “excellent candidate for the Anthropocene period’s golden spike," DOST-PNRI said in a statement.
Sampling the ice core at the SE Dome site in Greenland. (Photo courtesy of DOST-PNRI)
Specifically, this I-129 in the ice core recorded signals from nuclear weapons testing in 1958, 1961, and 1962, the Chernobyl Accident in 1986, and other various signals from nuclear fuel reprocessing within the same year or a year after.
"Most importantly, these I-129 nuclear signals were also seen in other records from different locations and environments worldwide, such as in trees, corals, and sediments," DOST-PNRI said.
"This means that these signals can be found virtually anywhere – a good characteristic of a potential golden spike. This global presence is comparable with those of the C-14 and Pu-239 bomb signals, but the much longer half-life of I-129 makes it a more enduring and ideal golden spike," it added.
More of the study can be found published in Science of the Total Environment, one of the world’s leading environmental science journals.