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Humans are undoubtedly altering many geological processes on Earth—and have been for some time. But what is the stratigraphic evidence for officially distinguishing this new human-dominated time period, termed the “Anthropocene,” from the preceding Holocene epoch? Waters et al. review climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores. Combined with deposits of new materials and radionuclides, as well as human-caused modification of sedimentary processes, the Anthropocene stands alone stratigraphically as a new epoch beginning sometime in the mid–20th century. Science , this issue p. 10.1126/science.aad2622 Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth. Vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the Anthropocene. We review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the Earth system through the stratigraphic record. The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.

To meet economic and environmental demands for about 10 billion people by the mid‐21st century, humanity will be challenged to double food production from the Earth's soil and diminish adverse effects of soil management on the wider environment. To meet these challenges, an array of scientific approaches is being used to increase understanding of long‐term soil trends and soil–environment interactions. One of these approaches, that of long‐term soil experiments (LTSEs), provides direct observations of soil change and functioning across time scales of decades, data critical for biological, biogeochemical, and environmental assessments of sustainability; for predictions of soil productivity and soil–environment interactions; and for developing models at a wide range of scales. Although LTSEs take years to mature, are vulnerable to loss, and have yet to be comprehensively inventoried or networked, LTSEs address a number of contemporary issues and yield data of special significance to soil management. The objective of this study was to evaluate how LTSEs address three questions that fundamentally challenge modern society: how soils can sustain a doubling of food production in the coming decades, how soils interact with the global C cycle, and how soil management can establish greater control over nutrient cycling. Results demonstrate how LTSEs produce significant data and perspectives for all three questions. Results also suggest the need for a review of the state of our long‐term soil‐research base and the establishment of an efficiently run network of LTSEs aimed at soil‐management sustainability and improving management control over C and nutrient cycling.

900 I. 900 II. 901 III. 901 IV. 902 V. 905 VI. 908 909 References 909 SUMMARY: Integrative concepts of the biosphere, ecosystem, biogeocenosis and, recently, Earth's critical zone embrace scientific disciplines that link matter, energy and organisms in a systems‐level understanding of our remarkable planet. Here, we assert the congruence of Tansley's (1935) venerable ecosystem concept of ‘one physical system’ with Earth science's critical zone. Ecosystems and critical zones are congruent across spatial–temporal scales from vegetation‐clad weathering profiles and hillslopes, small catchments, landscapes, river basins, continents, to Earth's whole terrestrial surface. What may be less obvious is congruence in the vertical dimension. We use ecosystem metabolism to argue that full accounting of photosynthetically fixed carbon includes respiratory CO₂and carbonic acid that propagate to the base of the critical zone itself. Although a small fraction of respiration, the downward diffusion of CO₂helps determine rates of soil formation and, ultimately, ecosystem evolution and resilience. Because life in the upper portions of terrestrial ecosystems significantly affects biogeochemistry throughout weathering profiles, the lower boundaries of most terrestrial ecosystems have been demarcated at depths too shallow to permit a complete understanding of ecosystem structure and function. Opportunities abound to explore connections between upper and lower components of critical‐zone ecosystems, between soils and streams in watersheds, and between plant‐derived CO₂and deep microbial communities and mineral weathering.

Field-scale observations of two upland soils derived from contrasting granite and basalt bedrocks are presented to hypothesize that redox activity of rhizospheres exerts substantial effects on mineral dissolution and colloidal translocation in many upland soils. Rhizospheres are redox-active microsites and in the absence of O₂, oxidation of rhizodeposits can be coupled by reduction of redox-active species such as Fe, a biogenic reduction that leads to Fe translocation and oxidation, accompanied by substantial proton flux. Not only do rhizogenic Fe-C redox cycles demonstrate a process by which the rhizosphere affects an environment well outside the near-root zone, but these redox processes are also hypothesized to be potent weathering systems, such that rhizogenic redox-reactions complement acid- and ligand-promoted reactions as major biogeochemical processes that control crustal weathering. The potential significance of Fe-C redox cycling is underscored by the deep and extensive rooting and mottling of upland subsoils across a wide range of plant communities, lithologies, and soil-moisture and temperature regimes.

Wetlands are valuable for buffering waterways from excess nitrogen, yet these habitats are often dominated by invasive plant species. There is little understanding as to how various invasive species alter ecosystem nitrogen cycling, especially if one invasive overtakes an entire community of plants. Microstegium vimineum is a nonnative annual grass from Asia that is dominating riparian wetlands in the southeastern United States. To evaluate M. vimineum impacts on the N cycle, we used six paired plots, one invaded by M. vimineum and the other carefully weeded of M. vimineum ; removal allowed the establishment of a diverse plant community consisting of Polygonum , Juncus , and Carex species. In the paired plots, we estimated (1) N uptake and accumulation in vegetation biomass, (2) rates of decomposition and N release from plant detritus, (3) mineral soil N mineralization and nitrification, (4) root zone redox potential, and (5) soil water concentrations of inorganic N. The M. vimineum community accumulated approximately half the annual N biomass of the diverse community, 5.04 vs. 9.36 g N·m −2 ·yr −1 , respectively ( P = 0.05). Decomposition and release of N from M. vimineum detritus was much less than in the diverse community, 1.19 vs. 5.24 g N·m −2 ·yr −1 . Significantly higher inorganic soil N persisted beneath M. vimineum during the dormant season, although rates of soil N mineralization estimated by in situ incubations were relatively similar in all plots. Microstegium vimineum invasion thus appears to greatly diminish within-ecosystem circulation of N through the understory plants of these wetlands, whereas invasion effects on ecosystem N losses may derive more from enhanced denitrification (due to lower redox potential under M. vimineum plots) than due to leaching. Microstegium vimineum 's dominance and yet slower internal cycling of N are counterintuitive to conventional thinking that ecosystems with high N contain vegetation that quickly uptake and release N.

Restoration sites are vulnerable to plant invasions due to habitat and resource alteration. We conducted an invasive plant-removal study at a wetland restoration in the North Carolina Piedmont, a site dominated by the non-native invasive, Microstegium vimineum. Paired plots (M. vimineum hand-weeded and unweeded) were established and maintained to monitor response of plant species richness and diversity. Plots increased from 4 to 15 species m⁻² after three growing seasons of M. vimineum removal and 90% of the newly establishing species were native. Weeding ceased in the fourth growing season and M. vimineum rapidly re-invaded. Formerly weeded plots increased to 59% (±11% SE) M. vimineum cover, 25 of 51 plant species disappeared from the plots, and species richness decreased to an average of <8 species m⁻². Our results show that we can quickly establish an abundant, diverse community with invasive removal, but that persistent effort is required to monitor and maintain the long-term viability of this community.

Earth's rapidly changing near-surface environment needs systematic observation to better manage future crop production, climates, and water quality. Geologists tell us that we live in the Anthropocene, the period marked by humanity's global transformation of the environment ( 1 ). More than half of Earth's terrestrial surface is now plowed, pastured, fertilized, irrigated, drained, fumigated, bulldozed, compacted, eroded, reconstructed, manured, mined, logged, or converted to new uses. These activities have long-lasting effects on life-sustaining processes of the near-surface environment, recently termed Earth's “critical zone” ( 2 ). The full range of Anthropocene changes in Earth's critical zone is not well quantified, especially belowground (see the figure) ( 3 – 6 ), where observed changes justify a major expansion in monitoring to better ensure the sustainability of crop and soil productivity, and the functioning of the global atmosphere and hydrosphere ( 3 ).

Of the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation options available from U.S. forests and agricultural lands, forest management presents amongst the lowest cost and highest volume opportunities. A number of carbon (C) accounting schemes or protocols have recently emerged to track the mitigation achieved by individual forest management projects. Using 50-year C cycling data from the Calhoun Experimental Forest in South Carolina, USA, C storage is estimated for a hypothetical forest management C offset project operating under seven of these protocols. After 100 years of project implementation, net C sequestration among the seven protocols varies by nearly a full order of magnitude. This variation stems from differences in how individual C pools, baseline, leakage, certainty, and buffers are addressed under each protocol. This in turn translates to a wide variation in the C price required to match the net present value of the non-project, business-as-usual alternative. Collectively, these findings suggest that protocol-specific restrictions or requirements are likely to discount the amount of C that can be claimed in “real world” projects, potentially leading to higher project costs than estimated in previous aggregate national analyses.

With scholars deliberating a new name for our geologic epoch, i.e., the Anthropocene, soil scientists whether biologists, chemists, or physicists are documenting significant changes accruing in a majority of Earth's soils. Such global soil changes interact with the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere (i.e., Earth's Critical Zone), and these developments are significantly impacting the Earth's stratigraphic record as well. In effect, soil scientists study such global soil changes in a science of anthropedology, which leads directly to the need to transform pedostratigraphyinto an anthro-pedostratigraphy, a science that explores how global soil change alters Earth's litho-, bio-, and chemostratigraphy. These developments reinforce perspectives that the planet is indeed crossing into the Anthropocene.