I'm currently an Earth Science masters student at Brock University in Southern Ontario. My supervisor is the lead researcher for the push for Crawford Lake to represent the Anthropocene and I'm actually a co-author on the July 2023 paper that they talk about in the video (some of the fly-ash data is mine). Anyway, the fact that there is now a Sci-Show episode about Crawford Lake is BEYOND surreal. :D
i would be incredibly excited and honoured to have a part in history like yours! Congratulations on your involvement & getting highlighted on Sci-Show to boot!
It must be such a bizarre dichotomy to simultaneously be part of the work to define a new geological epoch and to know that that epoch is totally unnatural and we're the cause. Still, fascinating work! Congratulations!
That’s so cool! If you’d like another very small extremely deep lake in Ontario- more than 100 feet (we ran out of rope), let me know. It’s in granite, not limestone, though, and I don’t know what it’s chemistry is like. I do know that the clay on the bottom separates into layers with ease. It’s near Petroglyphs provincial park. Half of it is on Crown Land, the other side has a cottage built in 1978, but no other modern development at all. We no longer own the cottage, but I’m happy to point you in the right direction!
We used to have a cottage on a small lake in Ontario. It was very deep, and didn’t mix at all. It could be bath-like at the top and FREEZING a few meters down. You could feel the layers as you dove. On hot days we’d dive down to cool off! I never realized how unique a sensation it was until I got older and went to other lakes, and though ‘huh, I wonder why it isn’t cold down here…’. 😂
This is called a meromictic lake. There's another similar one in Gatineau Park (Quebec), near Ottawa, called Pink Lake. Its waters don't mix and in the Summer it turns emerald green. It's actually an abandoned mica mine from the 19th Century.
Crawford Lake is great. It's part of Halton Conservation. There are several trails, including a beautiful boardwalk around the lake, and a reconstructed First Nations village where they do a lot of education. I think almost every kid in the area goes on a field trip to Crawford Lake, usually in grade 6. There are also several gorgeous carved wooden statues and benches along parts of the trails.
I grew up going there a few times a week. I always heard about the whole "too deep for oxygen" thing and thought it was cool, but I didn't know it was so globally important too.
Nice to see a place I’ve been to many times get some recognition, even if it becomes a bit more busy. Besides being a Meromictic Lake, it also has an extensive history to it. There's a popular local legend about the lake being haunted by the ghosts of horses that fell through the ice while carrying a sleigh and lumber a couple hundred years ago, during a warmer winter. I think their bodies are still at the bottom, alongside the lost lumber. It’s said that if you go there on a full moon (or sometimes alone after sunset) in the winter, their shining red eyes will stare back at you. Spooky. There used to be a historic logging house next to the lake, but it was burnt down 50 years ago, allegedly by some partying fools (just some randos, the house was donated to Conservation Halton by the Crawford family alongside the land a few years before). There is a recreation of a native settlement a few minutes walk from the lake, which is placed above an abandoned village from the 15th century. The longhouses are built approximately above where the originals were, and are around the same size. It also features one of the largest ancient grind stones in NA, which is pretty cool. I usually just go there for the great trails however. The maple syrup and fall colours are good too I guess.
Crawford Lake felt like a special place from the first time I was there as a teenager in the 1980's, and the memory brought me back numerous times. Fascinating to find out it's scientific significance is much larger than the interpretive plaques indicate.
I've heard about this Anthropocene lake a few times recently. I knew it was in Ontario, but didn't realize it was the Conservation Area 25 minutes from my house.
Funny thing about the nuclear product deposits marking the start of the nuclear age: within a range of ±5 years, we had invented computers and Alan Turing produced his theory with experimental evidence, thus nuclear power and computers coincide together to form what we now call the modern age.
I remember going to a bunch of the Halton Region Conservation Areas as a kid. It was a super interesting story on how they discovered the indigenous history of the site, and it's awesome to see that the lake's unique attributes are still proving scientifically interesting!
This lake means a lot to me. Ever since I was a kid me and my family has a picnic there and we would take a walk around the lake. Earlier this year I learned of how it preserves layers of mud and how the water doesn’t mix. Very cool stuff.
It baffles me why anyone would be opposed to the idea of the Anthropocene being a thing! If the major changes caused by humans to the world aren't enough to delineate a new epoch, what the hell is!?
Geology major here to kind of explain! Geologic periods have a general set time for each epochs and periods. They usually have hundreds of thousands or millions of years between them. We’ve only just begun the Holocene epoch. Some geologists do not believe we should separate the geologic timescale to account for humans. However I think a lot of the geologic community is realizing that by saying the Anthropocene is a real epoch and time on the timescale it alerts people even more to our looming climate crisis. I’m going into environmental geology and science communication. Scishow, Hank Green, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and many others have been a huge influence on me and they’re one of the reasons I’m going into science. It saddens me that the general public refuses to trust scientists on climate change despite overwhelming evidence. That’s something I want to see change and hopefully can personally help.
I agree (and support @daisies9368) and wish them the best. I also think though that another reason for the difficulty is the "line" isn't something that happened at once. It wasn't an asteriod crashing into the Earth and extinguishing most life, it was a slow but steady increase (which continues today) of usage of modern materials and even those keep changing (heard of bakelite? How much asbestos are we using? We also don't test many nuclear bombs either). This creates a fuzzy edge to where the Anthropocene starts (and we sure don't know it's end either!) I can see reasons to, and not to, define it as an "age" but it certainly is having quite the effect on the planet!
@@daisies9368 glad you’re going into geology! We need more geologists! I was a geologist before I became disabled. We were talking about the likelihood of the Anthropocene in the 90’s. I’m always surprised it hasn’t been decided on yet. The Holocene marks the rise of humans. The Anthropocene would mark the destruction caused by humans. Considering everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two were just joined together under one name. On the Geologic timescale it would make more sense. But, if separating the two finally opens people’s eyes, I say go for it. It’s so disheartening how scientific literacy has gone backwards in my lifetime.
@@daisies9368 Awesome, thanks for the information! I personally think that the arrival of humans should mark the beginning of a new era and not just epoch.
Anybody who grew up in the area will tell you about the one or (in my case) more school trips to the lake to learn about the indigenous history of the area. The longhouses were the main event, the lake only being mentioned as a passing curiosity. Perhaps it will be of equal or even greater interest to schools now, particularly science classes. My favorite story was of the horse-drawn carriage that supposedly fell through the ice some century or two ago. The human(s) escaped if I remember but the horses did not. Because of the unique preservation at the bottom I always pictured the horses still down there looking as eerily fresh as they were when they fell in....
Being from Burlington I went on a school orientation trip there way back before the replica longhouses were built. Back then there was no fee to enter the park. I also visited a few times after the longhouse but I’m cheap and haven’t been back since a charge was implicated.
Those school trips were so much fun! I seem to recall someone saying that at night you could see the horses eyes gleaming from the depths below. A few times during our teenage years we stumbled upon Crawford lake on our 'hikes'. Once in the middle of the night, that was definitely a spooky experience
Let's not forget Dr. Francine McCarthy is the lead of the team on this, and she deserves recognition for her years of work and dedication to this discovery becoming public!
Just watch out for the dead horses at the bottom. On a school fieldtrip there, the guide told us about how, some decades ago, a guy drove a carriage pulled by two horses out over the lake. He had overestimated the thickness of the ice, and they fell in. Wonderful story for 12 year olds
Lake Saint Clair here in Tasmania may well have something to add to this research. It is Australia’s deepest lake in an extremely old environment far away from a lot of the more recent pollution we’ve added. I’d bet it shows something similar.
@@intellectually_lazy I know far away it is. It is where river I live near starts. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage area and national park. Are you really intellectually lazy?
I used to hang out there as a kid. Was talking about it with my parents just last week. Very unassuming place, love that it's got some new found significance.
and then it will be like area 51, no one is allowed to go there anymore without a formal application process and an appointment and security guards watching your every move
Naming an epoch after ourselves is pretty ambitious and optimistic. Given what has happened to nearly every other species on the planet, we’d be lucky not to be a blip that momentarily exists between the pre Anthropocene Event Epoch and post Anthropocene Event Epoch.
I do like this as a useful diagnostic tool for figuring out where and when the Anthropocene began. But I feel there is strong evidence for another location, the site of the Trinity Test in New Mexico. That is a single date at a known time that fundamentally changed Earth's geology in a measurable way. Personally, I believe we are actually seeing one of the briefest Periods in human history, from around 100,000-20,000 years ago till 1945 when the Cenozoic Era ends and the Anthropocene Era, not Period, begins. I do recognize that this is a somewhat contentious hypothesis, but I do feel it is supported by the data. For the past 100 thousand years or so humans have started measurably altering Earth's climate in a way that is recordable in the geologic era, marking the short Pre-Anthropocene Period at the end of the Quaternary Period, before things change in a way not dissimilar to the end of the Mesozoic and beginning of the Cenozoic Eras, with big nukes subbing in for the asteroid which ended that Era. This is a pedantic hill I will die on, but I am eager for criticism or comment.
It makes sense as a reference because it's easily measurable but I'd personally prefer to see the anthropocene start when our ancestors reached North America and finished wiping out the last of the megafauna. By the time we discovered fission we had long since become the dominant species in nearly every ecosystem and had significantly altered Earth's biosphere.
This is genius. I love this. I mean I'm disgusted with how thoughtless and self destructive we are, but conceptually this is such a beautiful application of a nature discovery.
How do scientists sample the layers without distorting the record? I assume they do something like a core sample but in a medium of mud and water it would get very mixed if they did very many.
Yeah, it seems to me like an epoch “reference point” should be both easier to access to study to “refer-to” and that doing so shouldn’t destroy or degrade the very reference point. Given the fairly small area of the smallish lake, how many sediment cores can we take from a drifting boat before our next core is too close to a previous core sample site? Unlike taking an ice core on land where you can walk a few steps further to make sure your next ice core is far enough away from previous sample sites.
I really like Kurz's HE idea. Interestingly, we have already started the "Holocene" which according to some googling, was 11,700 years ago. That would put it around 300 HE. For the sake of convenience (just add 10k years) I prefer Kurz's measurements. The Anthropocene is something else - it is roughly when we really started to change the planet (which is not really a fixed point in time, it just accelerated and keeps doing so).
Vaclav Smil made some very valid points as to why human influence on the Earth shouldn't count as a new epoch. Most notably, we have zero effect on any of the geological forces of the earth itself, only on the atmosphere, and even then we haven't changed the absolute percentage of gases in it dramatically. We are less significant than people like to think we are.
crazy, just looking for something wholesome to watch as my opa’s euthanasia is tomorrow and randomly looked up scishow. i don’t tend to watch u guys all that much, only if it comes up in my recommended. and you guys posted 8 minutes ago!!!!!!!!! thank u ❤
It’s kinda crazy this got recommended to me, I have lived in Stoney creek, Hamilton for my entire 22 year old life and have not heard of this lake or this Chanel and see this video and find out I’m about 30 mins away from it
Calcium carbonate absorbs acid like a sponge, it is why it is used in Tums and the prescrip-only medicines like it. That would make a layer of mud underneath where the microbes which normally break down, and recycle, matter at the bottoms of a lake simply aren't there; the water becomes alkaline. Only a bit, but enough that fungi, rather than bacteria, are the things breaking down most matter. It is the same thing that happens to make bogs (not through calcium carbonate). In a normal lake, the combo of bacteria, small critters and fungi breaks down and recycles almost everything. But in bogs, only specialized plants like mosses, and other organisms like fungi can proliferate and break things down, leading to remarkable preservation. It is why the Bog Bodies in Europe are such excellent finds.
Core samples aren't usually all that big in diameter, and they usually collect them with a weighted metal tube dropped from the surface. Good question though. 👍
Hey! I'm a masters student who was lucky enough to be at the lake when the cores were taken. We use a metal spike filled with a slurry of dry ice and ethanol. That gets lowered into the lake and then dropped so it wedges in a couple of metres deep. Then you wait for half an hour for the sediment to freeze onto the metal and you scrape off the excess after you pull it up. The layers are super detailed. It's mesmerizing. Also, getting permission to sample the lake is a pretty long process since the area is in a conservation area and the lake has cultural significance to some indigenous groups. We were actually pretty lucky to get to take the cores that we took this past April. We didn't even know if we were going to be allowed until the morning we came.
Grew up in the area, just down the road from it. Done school projects on Crawford Lake twice, one for 10th grade History, and again for 2nd year Anthropology in Uni. Always nice to see my old neck of the woods get mentioned anywhere.
my uncle introduced me to the anthropocene when i was 6. now i'm 14 and i prefer classic anthropocene compared to the modern anthropocene that's more popular with people my age
Wicked cool! Great Video. I suppose the only way to 'read' the bed would be to core sample it? Or, have a sonar that penetrates deep enough with a high enough resolution to differentiate between the no doubt subtle density differences between the layers. One would think that the thickness of the layers is likely rather minuscule, so non invasive probing with something like sonar would need require extremely accurate hardware.
There goes our fav hiking trail. If you go, go during maple sugar season. They have a recreation aboriginal village and they make maple syrop the old old fashioned way. It’s an amazing park. And the sign on the lakes been explaining this for years. The internet just finally caught up.
As a nod to our history, I'll add that the Wyandot (Huron) name for Crawford Lake is Kionywarihwaen. It's a pretty little lake, nice hiking in the area, yet easily reached by exurban transit from Toronto or a quick drive. There's a reconstucted 15th Century Iroquoian village near the lake, with three longhouses, a palisade, and an excellent museum. It would be nice spot for a climate science museum!! I didn't know of any until I checked, but there such museums in NYC, and Hong Kong, as well as a mobile/digital one in the U.K. and we are overdue to have one in this country. The Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa is strong on presenting climate science, and so is the ROM in Toronto, so perhaps they could be recruited to such a project.
The Human Age. Excellent concept. The name is lacking some of the destructive nature of the namesake though. Still this could help the acceptance of being ecologically responsible in the future.
I almost didn't notice that they didn't even say the date lol. The proposed base of the anthropocene is the layer of mud (varve) deposited in 1950. After which there's a sharp increase in plutonium, fly-ash, and lots of other proxies (LOTS of other proxies)
Lol I thought the same thing when I saw it. The layers are between 0.5mm and 2mm in reality. I was lucky enough to be part of the group that cored the lake this past April.
After watching this video, I’m still unsure when the Anthropocene begin, so I asked Bing chat: When does the Anthropocene epoch begin? Bing chat reply: "The exact start date of the Anthropocene epoch is still a matter of debate among scientists. According to the Anthropocene Working Group, the Anthropocene epoch began around 1950 when the Great Acceleration, a dramatic increase in human activity affecting the planet, took off. However, some scientists argue that the Anthropocene began at the start of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, when human activity had a great impact on carbon and methane in Earth’s atmosphere. Others think that the beginning of the Anthropocene should be 1945, when humans tested the first atomic bomb, and then dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Please note that the Anthropocene epoch is not yet an official unit of geologic time, and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) has not yet formally adopted the term."
@@ZT1ST The uncertainty principle comes to mind. However, I'm still trying to think of an equivalent statement. Additional edit: Say, the scientists agreed where the human era start but they're uncertain when it begin. If they're ever determined when the Anthropocene begin, then they cannot tell where does it start.
One cannot describe the enjoyment i experienced upon realizing that not only is Crawford lake only miles from my hometime, i went on at least 2 field trips threre as a kid! Once for my school in elementary, another time as a teenager in a leadership camp. Great times. Heard "small lake, deep af archeological dig, native longhouses" and went OMG!! I went there!
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*talking about our terrible effect on the environment* *stock footage of a nuclear plant* *the cleanest source of energy we have by a wide margin* Woof
Thanks for this video. You put out good stuff. Strange, I grew up a fairly short bike ride away from Crawford Conservation Area. Spent a lot of fun times around there. Bit mind boggling that it's now serving as the marker for the beginning of the Anthropocene.
I lived in area for couple decades. Eden Mills Ontario had rail connection to Toronto. Was useful during underground railway era and re-engineered for prohibition commerce by Al Capone.
For 13 years I lived in a house situated under Rattlesnake Point. A rather idyllic setting back then and with easy access to the Bruce Trail. I could walk from my home to Crawford lake in maybe 30-40 minutes. It is a lovely walk around the perimeter of the lake and the surface of the lake is emerald green. One can see the bass swimming or suspended in the top layer of the lake. The history of the lake in the last 150 years is also pretty interesting from a more historical rather than geological perspective. Every time I hear about Crawford Lake though, I’ll always remember a brief encounter with a man and his 2 golden retrievers. Let me back up a bit. There are signs posted at the lake “no swimming” and “dogs must be kept on leash” which is, I suppose warranted given the historic and scientific importance of the lake. Well, this guy with his dogs appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to disrobe to his bathing suit and dove in the lake along with his 2 dogs. It gave me a chuckle only because there was this sense in me that, for all the scientific significance of the lake, people have, for millennia enjoyed this lake. To me, the sign postings simply disappeared and I thought, “this lake was truly meant to be enjoyed this way”. Sadly, I suppose that would be unsustainable given the amount of traffic through the park but really; even the First Nations that were here initially would probably have enjoyed the lake this way (but perhaps without the golden retrievers 😉)
Don't forget about the layer with the stubby beer bottles in it. Crawford Lake was a swimming hole and party place in the 1960's, before it was protected in any way.
If you like this story, there is a similar story about Last Chance Lake in British Columbia. I read it on CNN's web site but I'm sure there are others. The article is "A shallow lake in Canada could point to the origin of life on Earth. " A quote from the article : " The shallow, salty body of water situated on volcanic rock - known as Last Chance Lake - holds clues that carbonate-rich lakes in ancient Earth could have been a “cradle of life,” according to study coauthor David Catling, a University of Washington professor of geosciences. The finding, published in the journal Nature on January 9, could advance scientific understanding of how life began. “We were able to look for the specific conditions that people use to synthesize the building blocks of life in nature,” Catling said. “We think that we have a very promising place for the origin of life.”
I remember visiting here on school field trips when I was a kid. There were lots of stories and local legends about the lake, but the most popular was that Mr. Crawford was riding across the lake with his horse one winter, when the ice broke and they fell in. He managed to escape, but the horse sank into the depths of the lake. Since the bottom of the lake had no oxygen (which after watching this video clearly isn't true), the horse's body was perfectly preserved, and on very cold winter nights, when it was frozen over and nobody was around, the horse would gallop on the lake but could never leave. I think one kid in my class said something about glowing red eyes too 🤣
I've been there. It was a cloudy, tranquil day. The still water was a mirror to the clouds. Pumpkin seed fish shimmered gloriously through the waters. Unbeknownst to them, they swam in a harbinger of dark times
This is amazing! I can't think of how they found that lake and it's special existence. I guess some student of biology found something at some point. And yes, I think we need that new epoche.
I'm currently an Earth Science masters student at Brock University in Southern Ontario. My supervisor is the lead researcher for the push for Crawford Lake to represent the Anthropocene and I'm actually a co-author on the July 2023 paper that they talk about in the video (some of the fly-ash data is mine). Anyway, the fact that there is now a Sci-Show episode about Crawford Lake is BEYOND surreal. :D
+
i would be incredibly excited and honoured to have a part in history like yours! Congratulations on your involvement & getting highlighted on Sci-Show to boot!
Thanks so much! It's been super exciting.
It must be such a bizarre dichotomy to simultaneously be part of the work to define a new geological epoch and to know that that epoch is totally unnatural and we're the cause.
Still, fascinating work! Congratulations!
That’s so cool! If you’d like another very small extremely deep lake in Ontario- more than 100 feet (we ran out of rope), let me know. It’s in granite, not limestone, though, and I don’t know what it’s chemistry is like. I do know that the clay on the bottom separates into layers with ease. It’s near Petroglyphs provincial park. Half of it is on Crown Land, the other side has a cottage built in 1978, but no other modern development at all. We no longer own the cottage, but I’m happy to point you in the right direction!
They remembered Canada exists which means as a Canadian I'm obligated to watch.
Wait... Canadians exists?
@@LegendaryCryBaby2338shockingly yes
Same.
Eh-men! Especially as a resident of southern Ontario.
I know the feeling, I’m from New Zealand and most movies leave us off the map and most the time we are just assumed to be part of Australia
I've been for a dive in Crawford, the thermocline is insane, temp drops about 15 degrees almost instantly when you hit it.
WEIRD. ALMOST LIKE THE SALT LINE IN A CENOTE.
I'm assuming Celsius?
We used to have a cottage on a small lake in Ontario. It was very deep, and didn’t mix at all. It could be bath-like at the top and FREEZING a few meters down. You could feel the layers as you dove. On hot days we’d dive down to cool off! I never realized how unique a sensation it was until I got older and went to other lakes, and though ‘huh, I wonder why it isn’t cold down here…’. 😂
@@nobody.of.importanceobviously
You mixed the layers! Never mix the layers!
This is called a meromictic lake. There's another similar one in Gatineau Park (Quebec), near Ottawa, called Pink Lake. Its waters don't mix and in the Summer it turns emerald green. It's actually an abandoned mica mine from the 19th Century.
Lake Tanganyika is also a meromictic lake.
This lake you describe might be a good starting point as well, since it is definitely affected by humans.
I’ve been to Pink Lake, it’s honestly gorgeous.
Love the biking and hiking trails around pink lake! Gorgeous place to be
Cool to see our city mentioned
The Anthropocene seems to be a cool concept. Someone should write a book reviewing it.
will be either the shortest or longest epoch ever
@@yuanruichen2564 1945-2045
@@yuanruichen2564Depends if we want to end it tomorrow or keep it going for trillions of years
I understood that reference!
@@theorangeoof926You mean billions. Our sun will die in a few billion years.
Somebody get John Green to revive The Anthropocene Reviewed just for this lake
You know hes not allowed in Canada
@@DarthAnimalwait whatt
@@nhycohyesimon insufficient funds
@@nhycohyesimonlearn to read
@@SpayAndNeuterChristians As John Green says “we should be kind while there is still time”.
Crawford Lake is great. It's part of Halton Conservation. There are several trails, including a beautiful boardwalk around the lake, and a reconstructed First Nations village where they do a lot of education. I think almost every kid in the area goes on a field trip to Crawford Lake, usually in grade 6. There are also several gorgeous carved wooden statues and benches along parts of the trails.
I can confirm. I went there multiple times in my elementary school days.
its actually 6 nations. the long houses were made by mohawk tribes.. Algonquin, etc.
Is it just me or did the video start out saying this was in Manitoba? When it's early in Ontario... Or am i misunderstanding her?
@@JimmyTheMachine You misunderstood her
I grew up going there a few times a week. I always heard about the whole "too deep for oxygen" thing and thought it was cool, but I didn't know it was so globally important too.
Nice to see a place I’ve been to many times get some recognition, even if it becomes a bit more busy. Besides being a Meromictic Lake, it also has an extensive history to it. There's a popular local legend about the lake being haunted by the ghosts of horses that fell through the ice while carrying a sleigh and lumber a couple hundred years ago, during a warmer winter. I think their bodies are still at the bottom, alongside the lost lumber. It’s said that if you go there on a full moon (or sometimes alone after sunset) in the winter, their shining red eyes will stare back at you. Spooky.
There used to be a historic logging house next to the lake, but it was burnt down 50 years ago, allegedly by some partying fools (just some randos, the house was donated to Conservation Halton by the Crawford family alongside the land a few years before). There is a recreation of a native settlement a few minutes walk from the lake, which is placed above an abandoned village from the 15th century. The longhouses are built approximately above where the originals were, and are around the same size. It also features one of the largest ancient grind stones in NA, which is pretty cool.
I usually just go there for the great trails however. The maple syrup and fall colours are good too I guess.
can't wait to get betty and barneyed by some intergalactic a ss-freaks
@@intellectually_lazy Get what now?
You seem like an awesome person
Crawford Lake felt like a special place from the first time I was there as a teenager in the 1980's, and the memory brought me back numerous times. Fascinating to find out it's scientific significance is much larger than the interpretive plaques indicate.
As a Canadian, this is canadarific
Good thing that it is not cadaveric. 💀
I've heard about this Anthropocene lake a few times recently. I knew it was in Ontario, but didn't realize it was the Conservation Area 25 minutes from my house.
You sooo have to go now.
Funny thing about the nuclear product deposits marking the start of the nuclear age: within a range of ±5 years, we had invented computers and Alan Turing produced his theory with experimental evidence, thus nuclear power and computers coincide together to form what we now call the modern age.
Just a correction... plutonium in the environment is produced by nuclear weapons, not nuclear power.
I remember going to a bunch of the Halton Region Conservation Areas as a kid. It was a super interesting story on how they discovered the indigenous history of the site, and it's awesome to see that the lake's unique attributes are still proving scientifically interesting!
Whaaa!?! I live less than an hour drive!
Fairly sure we went on a field trip in elementary school to Crawford lake! Super cool
I went on the same trip twice when I was younger.
This lake means a lot to me. Ever since I was a kid me and my family has a picnic there and we would take a walk around the lake. Earlier this year I learned of how it preserves layers of mud and how the water doesn’t mix. Very cool stuff.
It baffles me why anyone would be opposed to the idea of the Anthropocene being a thing! If the major changes caused by humans to the world aren't enough to delineate a new epoch, what the hell is!?
Tbf it’s not scientists that have the problem.
Geology major here to kind of explain! Geologic periods have a general set time for each epochs and periods. They usually have hundreds of thousands or millions of years between them. We’ve only just begun the Holocene epoch. Some geologists do not believe we should separate the geologic timescale to account for humans. However I think a lot of the geologic community is realizing that by saying the Anthropocene is a real epoch and time on the timescale it alerts people even more to our looming climate crisis. I’m going into environmental geology and science communication. Scishow, Hank Green, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and many others have been a huge influence on me and they’re one of the reasons I’m going into science. It saddens me that the general public refuses to trust scientists on climate change despite overwhelming evidence. That’s something I want to see change and hopefully can personally help.
I agree (and support @daisies9368) and wish them the best. I also think though that another reason for the difficulty is the "line" isn't something that happened at once. It wasn't an asteriod crashing into the Earth and extinguishing most life, it was a slow but steady increase (which continues today) of usage of modern materials and even those keep changing (heard of bakelite? How much asbestos are we using? We also don't test many nuclear bombs either). This creates a fuzzy edge to where the Anthropocene starts (and we sure don't know it's end either!) I can see reasons to, and not to, define it as an "age" but it certainly is having quite the effect on the planet!
@@daisies9368 glad you’re going into geology! We need more geologists! I was a geologist before I became disabled. We were talking about the likelihood of the Anthropocene in the 90’s. I’m always surprised it hasn’t been decided on yet. The Holocene marks the rise of humans. The Anthropocene would mark the destruction caused by humans. Considering everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two were just joined together under one name. On the Geologic timescale it would make more sense. But, if separating the two finally opens people’s eyes, I say go for it. It’s so disheartening how scientific literacy has gone backwards in my lifetime.
@@daisies9368 Awesome, thanks for the information! I personally think that the arrival of humans should mark the beginning of a new era and not just epoch.
I went to Crawford lake on two separate occasions in school.. the native long houses were pretty cool
Savannah is a really talented host 🎉
Thats crazy I’ve walked the trail there a bunch of times. Weird to think that little lake can be so significant.
I know some of the people involved in this and have hear them issuing it for years. It's so cool that this made it to Sci Show!
I live 40kms away from this lake! I should totally pay a visit sometime when it gets warmer.
Just grab a Tims and go for it. Im sure its great in every season. (416)
Not only they have attractions in the Winter, but with a single pass you can visit any of the six or seven Halton Conservation parks nearby.
Go in the Winter and skate on it. Now that's Canadian!
Fun fact: I got engaged to my now fiancé at Crawford lake! (Earlier this year)... cool to see people finally paying attention to it
Did you happen to get a staffer's help with that? I was there that day, if so! Congrats again!
This is a half hour drive away from my home.💀As an Earth Science student this is really exciting to see!
interesting name Slugcat
Anybody who grew up in the area will tell you about the one or (in my case) more school trips to the lake to learn about the indigenous history of the area. The longhouses were the main event, the lake only being mentioned as a passing curiosity. Perhaps it will be of equal or even greater interest to schools now, particularly science classes.
My favorite story was of the horse-drawn carriage that supposedly fell through the ice some century or two ago. The human(s) escaped if I remember but the horses did not. Because of the unique preservation at the bottom I always pictured the horses still down there looking as eerily fresh as they were when they fell in....
Hah, I barely remembered the log cabins but remember that exact story very well. Always wondered what the horses really looked like down there.
Yes I've heard that story too I've always thought the same about the horses at the bottom of the lake
Came here to comment exactly this lol. Every Miltonian has been there on so many school trips as a kid.
Being from Burlington I went on a school orientation trip there way back before the replica longhouses were built. Back then there was no fee to enter the park. I also visited a few times after the longhouse but I’m cheap and haven’t been back since a charge was implicated.
Those school trips were so much fun! I seem to recall someone saying that at night you could see the horses eyes gleaming from the depths below. A few times during our teenage years we stumbled upon Crawford lake on our 'hikes'. Once in the middle of the night, that was definitely a spooky experience
Let's not forget Dr. Francine McCarthy is the lead of the team on this, and she deserves recognition for her years of work and dedication to this discovery becoming public!
If theres a scientifically sacred pond out there, thats the one 😅
Scientifically sacred?
Just watch out for the dead horses at the bottom. On a school fieldtrip there, the guide told us about how, some decades ago, a guy drove a carriage pulled by two horses out over the lake. He had overestimated the thickness of the ice, and they fell in. Wonderful story for 12 year olds
Lake Saint Clair here in Tasmania may well have something to add to this research. It is Australia’s deepest lake in an extremely old environment far away from a lot of the more recent pollution we’ve added. I’d bet it shows something similar.
i bet it ain't so far as you think. what isn't full of pfas and plastic?
@@intellectually_lazy I know far away it is. It is where river I live near starts. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage area and national park. Are you really intellectually lazy?
that's what i've been looking for, to make a new calendar system. thanks
Kionywarihwaen (Crawford Lake): in the indigenous Wyandot language, caretakers of the lake and land for time immemorial.
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I used to go to crawford lake for summer camp when i was a kid in the early nineties.. ways of the woods camp lol
I used to hang out there as a kid. Was talking about it with my parents just last week. Very unassuming place, love that it's got some new found significance.
and then it will be like area 51, no one is allowed to go there anymore without a formal application process and an appointment and security guards watching your every move
Did anyone else think Savannah was about to say "white chocolate" at 3:37?
Now that you mention it... "White chalky ,,,"
Naming an epoch after ourselves is pretty ambitious and optimistic. Given what has happened to nearly every other species on the planet, we’d be lucky not to be a blip that momentarily exists between the pre Anthropocene Event Epoch and post Anthropocene Event Epoch.
I do like this as a useful diagnostic tool for figuring out where and when the Anthropocene began. But I feel there is strong evidence for another location, the site of the Trinity Test in New Mexico. That is a single date at a known time that fundamentally changed Earth's geology in a measurable way. Personally, I believe we are actually seeing one of the briefest Periods in human history, from around 100,000-20,000 years ago till 1945 when the Cenozoic Era ends and the Anthropocene Era, not Period, begins. I do recognize that this is a somewhat contentious hypothesis, but I do feel it is supported by the data. For the past 100 thousand years or so humans have started measurably altering Earth's climate in a way that is recordable in the geologic era, marking the short Pre-Anthropocene Period at the end of the Quaternary Period, before things change in a way not dissimilar to the end of the Mesozoic and beginning of the Cenozoic Eras, with big nukes subbing in for the asteroid which ended that Era. This is a pedantic hill I will die on, but I am eager for criticism or comment.
I agree. Coupled with an extinction event most definitely with an anthropic influence - if not cause - it seems necessary to mark a new boundary.
It makes sense as a reference because it's easily measurable but I'd personally prefer to see the anthropocene start when our ancestors reached North America and finished wiping out the last of the megafauna. By the time we discovered fission we had long since become the dominant species in nearly every ecosystem and had significantly altered Earth's biosphere.
I've came here many times with my family on Thanksgiving and I never knew this
This is genius. I love this. I mean I'm disgusted with how thoughtless and self destructive we are, but conceptually this is such a beautiful application of a nature discovery.
nature is not your friend. it wants you dead
Google how much China is increasing coal burning.
*ingenious
I’ve been hiking this lake since I was a kid. I knew it was cool, but I didn’t know it was THIS cool
How do scientists sample the layers without distorting the record? I assume they do something like a core sample but in a medium of mud and water it would get very mixed if they did very many.
Yeah, it seems to me like an epoch “reference point” should be both easier to access to study to “refer-to” and that doing so shouldn’t destroy or degrade the very reference point. Given the fairly small area of the smallish lake, how many sediment cores can we take from a drifting boat before our next core is too close to a previous core sample site? Unlike taking an ice core on land where you can walk a few steps further to make sure your next ice core is far enough away from previous sample sites.
OMG, I planted Corn / Maize at Crawford Lake a few years ago and now I might be part of the Anthropocene Epoch Cool
As someone who was raised in the GTA, I've been there multiple times. It's a good place to visit.
In highschool they brought us there for a field trip. It was neat to learn about
Thanks for explaining it so well.
It’s a beautiful place to hike, too.
Really thought SciShow was about to get in on Kurzgesagt's Human Era calendar... Would be a great way to start 12,024 HE.
I really like Kurz's HE idea. Interestingly, we have already started the "Holocene" which according to some googling, was 11,700 years ago. That would put it around 300 HE. For the sake of convenience (just add 10k years) I prefer Kurz's measurements.
The Anthropocene is something else - it is roughly when we really started to change the planet (which is not really a fixed point in time, it just accelerated and keeps doing so).
My family and I visited the park while scientists were drilling one winter (we were cross-country skiing.) So cool to see it in videos online!
Hey! I live in middle of that circle!!!
Vaclav Smil made some very valid points as to why human influence on the Earth shouldn't count as a new epoch. Most notably, we have zero effect on any of the geological forces of the earth itself, only on the atmosphere, and even then we haven't changed the absolute percentage of gases in it dramatically. We are less significant than people like to think we are.
crazy, just looking for something wholesome to watch as my opa’s euthanasia is tomorrow and randomly looked up scishow. i don’t tend to watch u guys all that much, only if it comes up in my recommended. and you guys posted 8 minutes ago!!!!!!!!! thank u ❤
It’s kinda crazy this got recommended to me, I have lived in Stoney creek, Hamilton for my entire 22 year old life and have not heard of this lake or this Chanel and see this video and find out I’m about 30 mins away from it
OK Ontarions, let’s march to Milton!
Too many people. I’ll stay in the Northwestern part of Ontario, thanks
Calcium carbonate absorbs acid like a sponge, it is why it is used in Tums and the prescrip-only medicines like it. That would make a layer of mud underneath where the microbes which normally break down, and recycle, matter at the bottoms of a lake simply aren't there; the water becomes alkaline. Only a bit, but enough that fungi, rather than bacteria, are the things breaking down most matter. It is the same thing that happens to make bogs (not through calcium carbonate).
In a normal lake, the combo of bacteria, small critters and fungi breaks down and recycles almost everything. But in bogs, only specialized plants like mosses, and other organisms like fungi can proliferate and break things down, leading to remarkable preservation. It is why the Bog Bodies in Europe are such excellent finds.
Awesome! Love the Narrator, excellent job, thanks
I am not a science person so I'm not sure why this popped into my UA-cam feed but I'm so very glad that I watched it. Thanks that was informative.
As a Canadian who lives near that lake... sorry.
Studied this lake during my time at the University of Toronto.... Fascinating place...
How would people dig into it without mixing up the layers?
Are there limits to how many samples scientists are allowed to take of the lake?
Good question! I guess taking very careful core samples?
Packed mud can be resilient enough, with limestone and all, it's probably like sandstone.
Core samples aren't usually all that big in diameter, and they usually collect them with a weighted metal tube dropped from the surface. Good question though. 👍
Hey! I'm a masters student who was lucky enough to be at the lake when the cores were taken. We use a metal spike filled with a slurry of dry ice and ethanol. That gets lowered into the lake and then dropped so it wedges in a couple of metres deep. Then you wait for half an hour for the sediment to freeze onto the metal and you scrape off the excess after you pull it up. The layers are super detailed. It's mesmerizing. Also, getting permission to sample the lake is a pretty long process since the area is in a conservation area and the lake has cultural significance to some indigenous groups. We were actually pretty lucky to get to take the cores that we took this past April. We didn't even know if we were going to be allowed until the morning we came.
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Grew up in the area, just down the road from it. Done school projects on Crawford Lake twice, one for 10th grade History, and again for 2nd year Anthropology in Uni.
Always nice to see my old neck of the woods get mentioned anywhere.
my uncle introduced me to the anthropocene when i was 6. now i'm 14 and i prefer classic anthropocene compared to the modern anthropocene that's more popular with people my age
Wicked cool! Great Video. I suppose the only way to 'read' the bed would be to core sample it? Or, have a sonar that penetrates deep enough with a high enough resolution to differentiate between the no doubt subtle density differences between the layers. One would think that the thickness of the layers is likely rather minuscule, so non invasive probing with something like sonar would need require extremely accurate hardware.
There goes our fav hiking trail.
If you go, go during maple sugar season. They have a recreation aboriginal village and they make maple syrop the old old fashioned way. It’s an amazing park. And the sign on the lakes been explaining this for years. The internet just finally caught up.
As a nod to our history, I'll add that the Wyandot (Huron) name for Crawford Lake is Kionywarihwaen. It's a pretty little lake, nice hiking in the area, yet easily reached by exurban transit from Toronto or a quick drive. There's a reconstucted 15th Century Iroquoian village near the lake, with three longhouses, a palisade, and an excellent museum. It would be nice spot for a climate science museum!! I didn't know of any until I checked, but there such museums in NYC, and Hong Kong, as well as a mobile/digital one in the U.K. and we are overdue to have one in this country. The Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa is strong on presenting climate science, and so is the ROM in Toronto, so perhaps they could be recruited to such a project.
The Anthropocene will be shorter than a standard deviation in the geological record. Why bother?
This seems like a fairly valid point.
I grew up near there , passed by it each day giong to school . Its a creepy place man .
The Human Age. Excellent concept. The name is lacking some of the destructive nature of the namesake though. Still this could help the acceptance of being ecologically responsible in the future.
1:01 One note, it wouldn’t be north west of Toronto, it’s South West. North west would be in the Orangeville direction.
Dope
eh
@@STONEDay Why are you even here if you don't think things like this are interesting?
Oh nice! I used to walk my dog along the Bruce trail and we’d circle around Crawford lake.
I love the part where you clearly and definitely say where the anthropocene era starts based off crawford lake
I almost didn't notice that they didn't even say the date lol. The proposed base of the anthropocene is the layer of mud (varve) deposited in 1950. After which there's a sharp increase in plutonium, fly-ash, and lots of other proxies (LOTS of other proxies)
Love this lake, it's truly special. Hope we keep it protected!
What are the arguments against the Anthropocene?
How useful can the lake be? According to the animation there's only enough room in there for 4 or 5 years of deposits.
It's an animation. Probably not to scale.
Lol I thought the same thing when I saw it. The layers are between 0.5mm and 2mm in reality. I was lucky enough to be part of the group that cored the lake this past April.
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I have very little sympathy for unlabeled sarcasm in text.
Interesting, I've been to Crawford lake bunch of times this past couple of years and it's beautiful.
After watching this video, I’m still unsure when the Anthropocene begin, so I asked Bing chat: When does the Anthropocene epoch begin?
Bing chat reply: "The exact start date of the Anthropocene epoch is still a matter of debate among scientists. According to the Anthropocene Working Group, the Anthropocene epoch began around 1950 when the Great Acceleration, a dramatic increase in human activity affecting the planet, took off. However, some scientists argue that the Anthropocene began at the start of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, when human activity had a great impact on carbon and methane in Earth’s atmosphere. Others think that the beginning of the Anthropocene should be 1945, when humans tested the first atomic bomb, and then dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Please note that the Anthropocene epoch is not yet an official unit of geologic time, and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) has not yet formally adopted the term."
That seems to actually make it less clear what it is than more clear.
@@ZT1ST The uncertainty principle comes to mind. However, I'm still trying to think of an equivalent statement.
Additional edit: Say, the scientists agreed where the human era start but they're uncertain when it begin. If they're ever determined when the Anthropocene begin, then they cannot tell where does it start.
I got to visit Crawford Lake in the 90’s for a school project. I think I still have the write-up with pictures somewhere… 😊
Wow😂
One cannot describe the enjoyment i experienced upon realizing that not only is Crawford lake only miles from my hometime, i went on at least 2 field trips threre as a kid! Once for my school in elementary, another time as a teenager in a leadership camp. Great times. Heard "small lake, deep af archeological dig, native longhouses" and went OMG!! I went there!
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i love botts
@@kingdmind you wish
I thought it was Crawford lake, as a joke. Then I was right. I live less than a 20 minute drive from there... wild!
*talking about our terrible effect on the environment*
*stock footage of a nuclear plant*
*the cleanest source of energy we have by a wide margin*
Woof
Been hiking here all my life….absolutely gorgeous!
Thanks for this video. You put out good stuff. Strange, I grew up a fairly short bike ride away from Crawford Conservation Area. Spent a lot of fun times around there. Bit mind boggling that it's now serving as the marker for the beginning of the Anthropocene.
I lived in area for couple decades. Eden Mills Ontario had rail connection to Toronto. Was useful during underground railway era and re-engineered for prohibition commerce by Al Capone.
I live 20 min away from this lake and I've never even heard of it, till now
I can drive to Crawford Lake in 30-40 minutes any time!! Awesome
For 13 years I lived in a house situated under Rattlesnake Point. A rather idyllic setting back then and with easy access to the Bruce Trail. I could walk from my home to Crawford lake in maybe 30-40 minutes. It is a lovely walk around the perimeter of the lake and the surface of the lake is emerald green. One can see the bass swimming or suspended in the top layer of the lake. The history of the lake in the last 150 years is also pretty interesting from a more historical rather than geological perspective. Every time I hear about Crawford Lake though, I’ll always remember a brief encounter with a man and his 2 golden retrievers. Let me back up a bit. There are signs posted at the lake “no swimming” and “dogs must be kept on leash” which is, I suppose warranted given the historic and scientific importance of the lake. Well, this guy with his dogs appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to disrobe to his bathing suit and dove in the lake along with his 2 dogs. It gave me a chuckle only because there was this sense in me that, for all the scientific significance of the lake, people have, for millennia enjoyed this lake. To me, the sign postings simply disappeared and I thought, “this lake was truly meant to be enjoyed this way”. Sadly, I suppose that would be unsustainable given the amount of traffic through the park but really; even the First Nations that were here initially would probably have enjoyed the lake this way (but perhaps without the golden retrievers 😉)
Don't forget about the layer with the stubby beer bottles in it. Crawford Lake was a swimming hole and party place in the 1960's, before it was protected in any way.
Love hiking here. Very cool that this place could become even more protected in the future. One of the most stunningly beautiful lakes in Ontario.
If you like this story, there is a similar story about Last Chance Lake in British Columbia. I read it on CNN's web site but I'm sure there are others. The article is "A shallow lake in Canada could point to the origin of life on Earth. "
A quote from the article : " The shallow, salty body of water situated on volcanic rock - known as Last Chance Lake - holds clues that carbonate-rich lakes in ancient Earth could have been a “cradle of life,” according to study coauthor David Catling, a University of Washington professor of geosciences. The finding, published in the journal Nature on January 9, could advance scientific understanding of how life began. “We were able to look for the specific conditions that people use to synthesize the building blocks of life in nature,” Catling said. “We think that we have a very promising place for the origin of life.”
I remember visiting here on school field trips when I was a kid. There were lots of stories and local legends about the lake, but the most popular was that Mr. Crawford was riding across the lake with his horse one winter, when the ice broke and they fell in. He managed to escape, but the horse sank into the depths of the lake. Since the bottom of the lake had no oxygen (which after watching this video clearly isn't true), the horse's body was perfectly preserved, and on very cold winter nights, when it was frozen over and nobody was around, the horse would gallop on the lake but could never leave. I think one kid in my class said something about glowing red eyes too 🤣
I've been there. It was a cloudy, tranquil day. The still water was a mirror to the clouds. Pumpkin seed fish shimmered gloriously through the waters. Unbeknownst to them, they swam in a harbinger of dark times
I've been there! Several times. Very picturesque location.
I grew up 40 km away from crawford lake. So cool!!
Yeah, let's see if humanity can survive the next 10 million years. THEN we might name an era after ourselves.
This is practically in my backyard lol grew up fishing around Crawford lake, its an amazing place
This is amazing! I can't think of how they found that lake and it's special existence. I guess some student of biology found something at some point.
And yes, I think we need that new epoche.
Regarding the calcium carbonate,. remember if you aren't part of the solution you're part of the precipitate.
great pun Allan!
1:07 from Canada, can confirm. Instead of water fountains we just stick spouts directly into maple trees.