“Mapping the Anthropocene: first few steps.

…This page is dedicated to the impressionist mapping of the artifacts from this singular moment in Earth’s history. Impressionist because these maps are unlabelled and silent, giving free rein to contemplation and imagination; impressionist also because they do not follow the canons of cartography, where scales and legend are mandatory.

By locating the structures and hotspots of human activity, by acknowledging the extent of our footprints and our facilities, perhaps we will glimpse the limits of our world and the importance of redefining what it means to live in and on it.

Comments? Suggestions? Your feedbacks are more than welcomed: info [at] globaia [dot] org

NOTE: The items on these maps — cities, paved and unpaved roads, railways, power lines, pipelines, cable Internet, airlines, shipping lanes — are obviously not to scale. However, do keep in mind that these are only fraction of the artifacts that are present in reality. Roads, for example, are of such density that they would make these global visions quite opaque.

DATA SOURCE: Paved and Unpaved Roads, Pipelines, Railways & Transmission Lines: VMap0, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, September 2000. Shipping Lanes: NOAA’s SEAS BBXX database, from 14.10.2004 to 15.10.2005. Air Networks: International Civil Aviation Organization statistics. Urban Areas: naturalearthdata.com. Submarine Cables: Greg Mahlknecht’s Cable Map. Earth texture maps: Tom Patterson. Anthropocene Indicators: Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure, Steffen, W., Sanderson, A., Jäger, J., Tyson, P.D., Moore III, B., Matson, P.A., Richardson, K., Oldfield, F., Schellnhuber, H.-J., Turner II, B.L., Wasson, R.J. Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, 1st ed. 2004, 2nd printing, 2005, pp. 132-133.

For more maps and informations, see Erle Ellis excellent work here: Anthromes Research”