近日，英国格拉斯哥大学David James Brown团队研究了人类碎屑岩快速循环的证据。2025年4月10日，该研究成果发表在《地质学》杂志上。

人类在全球范围内产生、运输并随后沉积了大量的自然和人为废物。然而，这种材料随后的重新分布和岩化还有待了解。研究组记录了沿海环境中快速的“人类碎屑岩循环”，通过150多年来遗留废物的侵蚀、运输、沉积和岩化形成了人为岩石。英国西坎布里亚郡（19世纪和20世纪的主要钢铁制造区）的实地观察发现了一个胶结砾岩状岩石前滩台地，主要由矿渣碎屑（钢铁制造的副产品）组成。

碎屑形态和沉积结构分析表明，该物质是由邻近的渣堆侵蚀而来，并通过自然海岸作用被搬运和沉积。显微结构和地球化学分析发现了方解石、针铁矿和水镁石胶结物，以及人为物质（如铝罐）表明胶结作用在过去35年内发生。这些结果表明，碎屑岩的岩化速度是前所未有的快，这一过程是由废料的化学作用驱动的。人类碎屑岩快速旋回的认识挑战了对自然碎屑沉积岩旋回的传统理解，人类碎屑岩形成的时间尺度是10年，而不是数百万年。他们的发现强调了更新岩石海岸模型的必要性，因为新的人为地貌和物质正在形成，这对改变海岸动态和人为景观管理具有重要意义。

附：英文原文

Title: Evidence for a rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle

Author: Amanda Owen, John Murdoch MacDonald, David James Brown

Issue&Volume: 2025-04-10

Abstract: Humans generate, transport, and subsequently deposit vast quantities of natural and anthropogenic waste material across the globe. However, the subsequent redistribution and lithification of this material is yet to be understood. Here, we document a rapid “anthropoclastic rock cycle” in a coastal setting, with the formation of an anthropogenic rock through the erosion, transportation, deposition, and lithification of legacy waste material that has occurred over <150 years. Field observations from West Cumbria, UK (a major iron and steel making area in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), have identified a cemented conglomerate-like rocky foreshore platform that is dominantly composed of slag clasts (by-product from iron and steel making). Clast shape and sedimentary structure analysis demonstrates that the material has eroded from an adjacent slag heap and has been transported and deposited by natural coastal processes. Microstructural and geochemical analyses have identified calcite, goethite, and brucite cements, with anthropogenic material (e.g., aluminum can tab) indicating cementation has occurred within the past 35 years. These results indicate that lithification is unprecedently fast for a clastic rock, and this process is driven by the chemistry of the waste material. The recognition of a rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle challenges conventional understanding of the natural clastic sedimentary rock cycle, with anthropoclastic rocks forming over decadal time scales rather than thousands to millions of years. Our findings highlight the need for updates to rock coastal models as new anthropogenic landforms and materials are forming, with important implications for changing coastal dynamics and the management of anthropogenic landscapes.

DOI: 10.1130/G52895.1

Source: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/G52895.1/653591/Evidence-for-a-rapid-anthropoclastic-rock-cycleredirectedFrom=fulltext