A quiet Canadian lake could mark the start of the Anthropocene: A small lake in Canada’s Ontario may be used as the marker for the start of Earth’s Anthropocene epoch — a new geological chapter defined by humanity’s impacts on the planet, Nature reported earlier this week. Researchers, who have spent 14 years debating how to collect proof of when mankind began impacting the Earth, say that Crawford Lake’s sediments have collected the fallout from nuclear bombs and fossil fuel burning.

The “golden spike”: If given the nod by three geological organizations, a sediment core of the lake could become the “golden spike” marking the start of the Anthropocene. The sediment layers hold a record of environmental history, including remains of dirty fuel burning and traces of radioactive plutonium from nuclear bomb testing. “We have the key markers of the Anthropocene — at Crawford Lake, they line up perfectly,” said Francine McCarthy, who heads the team of researchers analyzing the lake.

So when does the Anthropocene start? Core samples taken from Crawford in 2019 and 2022 showed the plutonium traces increased in the early 1950s, but an additional sample taken this year showed that the year set for the golden spike could be 1950 which saw growing environmental changes or 1952 when levels of the radioactive chemical element rose dramatically.

But the timeline remains contentious among scientists: Critics argue pinning a new epoch to a recent time and place ignores the fact that humanity has been affecting the planet for much longer. “For Indigenous and other displaced and dispossessed peoples who were impacted by massive forms of violence that characterize the last 600 years, everything that leads up to what makes this global shift possible starts much earlier,” says anthropologist Zoe Todd. Proponents of the spike, on the other hand, say that the move is not meant to mark the start of humanity’s impact on the planet, but the planet’s response to this change.

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