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Anthropocene Ouroboros
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This ethnographic study explores how plastic objects on an Indian Ocean island shatter and disperse into microplastics, complicating our understanding of geological time. Researchers argue that because microplastics can migrate through sedimentary layers and infiltrate earlier geological strata, they disrupt the very framework used to delineate the Anthropocene. The paper examines the cultural and temporal implications of plastic pollution as a defining material of the modern era.
The ever-increasing abundance and expanding affordances of plastics have come to instantiate modernity through their successes and failures in usage and beyond. Materially, plastics have a capacity to stubbornly endure yet simultaneously to fracture. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork on an Indian Ocean island, this article will explore the heritage of plastic objects in their shattering and dispersal. The novel presence and ubiquity of plastics have caused some scholars to propose that the presence of plastics could constitute a possible marker of the Anthropocene. Yet plastics won’t stay in their own epoch. Microplastics can migrate and infuse sedimentary layers from previous eras, shimmying down to earlier stratigraphic layers and complicating the very knowability of the past. This paper will look at the temporal vertiginousness of the current epoch through the recalcitrance of human-made materials, arguing that, even in their material remnants, plastics radically complicate the delineation and understanding of geological time.
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This paper proposes reframing traditional geological concepts—from sedimentology to stratigraphy and the Anthropocene epoch—in light of widespread plastic integration into sedimentary environments. Plastics are described as emerging stratigraphic markers that alter erosion, transport, and deposition patterns, threatening marine biodiversity and challenging the view of rocks as purely natural inorganic formations.
Progress in assessment of the Anthropocene Series in the Geological Time Scale (GTS)
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This paper reviews the progress in formally recognizing the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch, with human-made markers including microplastics now preserved in sediments worldwide. The widespread presence of microplastics in geological layers is one of the key signals of humanity's permanent impact on the planet.
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This multidisciplinary study examined plastic waste as a material of the Anthropocene by tracing the journeys of plastic objects across cultural, natural, marine, and terrestrial landscapes, exploring how plastic's resilience makes it a defining and problematic artifact of modern civilization.
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This study examines macro- and microplastics as stratigraphic markers in alluvial sediment cores, finding that plastic abundance and type reflect historical changes in production and use since the mid-20th century. Researchers propose plastics as a useful chronological marker for the Anthropocene in fluvial sedimentary records.
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This paper advocates for an archaeological perspective on plastic pollution, treating plastics as artefacts amenable to visual analysis and archaeological science while also serving as stratigraphic chronological markers in the Anthropocene. The author argues that plastic pollution threatens natural and cultural heritage sites and that archaeologists must engage with this emerging research and conservation challenge.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.