As an Earth Scientist, I have been to many far-flung, somewhat forlorn and occasionally hostile environments, to look at rocks. I draw, measure, and sample them, eat my lunch whilst sitting on them, and sometimes argue with them when they keep their secrets too well hidden. Teasing stories from the rocks is a skill in detecting long lost landscapes and their climates, inhabitants, and evolution. We must always be prepared for limitations in what we can discuss and interpret because there is so much lost to us from our planet’s history, all we can do is close in on the ever-elusive truth. Our methods of predicting past and present landscapes are logically founded in physics and other fundamental natural phenomenon, yet, today in the Anthropocene the complex variability of our landscapes overprints our traditional “Earth Science” understandings. However, we continue to journey to remote terrains, seeking seemingly unspoiled landscapes for observations that appear pure and untouched by human activity. Yet, by distancing ourselves from human activity, we are overlooking the dominant force governing Earth processes and the sedimentary narratives therein, us.

Detaching us from Earth overlooks the pivotal reality of the Anthropocene that we are living in the time of human-directed change on Earth. We have grown our own mountain ranges from concrete and named them “Tokyo”, “New York”, or “London”, and tunnelled through ancient bedrock like giant worms with insatiable appetites. The sediments now don’t just include sand, mud, and rock, but every material traversing Earth's surface participates in sedimentary processes. The very device you are reading this on, and the contents of your waste bin, will someday become part of Earth’s future geological record.

Reimagining Earth Science through this lens invites us to see the environments we inhabit not as separate from natural systems but as extensions of them. As such, we see cities transform into dynamic sedimentary systems, where roads and bridges act as petroleum-fuelled streams on which materials flow. Additionally, pollution, often viewed solely as an environmental blight, may develop its fully-fledged duality and become feasible puzzle to solve. In short, how can we look towards the vast and overwhelming complexities of modern environments, and adapt our knowledge of Earth, such that future geologists can decipher the stratigraphic record of the Anthropocene?

I first came across this reimagination of Earth Science when looking at plastic in river systems. It was clear that plastic was present, harmful to wildlife, and, through experimentation, I found that they also fundamentally altered how sediment behaved on the riverbed! However, the language for how to consider plastic pollution as a sediment particle was incomplete, and the source, routing, and final resting place of the sediment seems impossibly hard to unravel. To discover the sources of plastic, collaborations with urban planners can reveal the capillaries of storm drains and sewer systems, and the reasons behind its “morphology”. Social scientists help us to understand the human behaviours driving mismanagement of plastic waste, and environmental scientists offer insights into chemical changes such as pollutants and their interactions with flora and fauna. Additionally, the results are of immediate relevance to policy makers and local communities, so we can work with artists and educators to communicate findings back into the community.

Navigating this long and complex project needs groundwork and alignment in the material classification, language, and motives, which is itself a significant undertaking. Through working with many brilliant people, I have taken the first steps on the way to finding unifying principles and language, from which we can lean into tackling complex interdisciplinary narratives. From projects such as this, sedimentologists can begin to glean how natural and human-driven cause-and-effect mechanisms impact sediment transport and deposition on a global scale. As such, through combining knowledge across disciplines we can enrich our understanding to create a more holistic picture of how sediments move across this geologically strange landscape.

All of this may offer knowledge to the fledgling sub-discipline of Anthropocene Sedimentology, which offers exciting potential in how we may develop as a society to inform our policy and governance. Once we can visualise ourselves as actively shaping the geological record and producing sediment, perhaps the impetus to implement sustainable practices becomes more immediate and personal. Ultimately, there is the potential to shift the narrative from one of separation—humans apart from nature—to one of integration, such that we may better embrace the entirety of our legacy and more clearly understand how future Earth will look, and future residents of Earth will look at us.