GEODIVERSITY AND THE INTERACTIONS OF SOCIO-NATURAL SYSTEMS IN AN ANTHROPOCENE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Earth sciences investigations allow us to know that the planet Earth is 4,6 billion years old. During that time a great number of processes have radically changed some aspects of the planet. In the first four billion years of Earth´s history life was in its initial stages and restricted to the ocean bodies. For the other five hundred million years remaining the living organisms have  become more diverse, they occupied the continental lands and the human society became a part of the Earth System  some  12 thousand years ago, even though our species had already been present on the planet for about 200 million years. That means that human presence on the planet is only a tiny fraction of the Earth´s history. Yet, on the other hand, the modern lifestyle of human beings has caused dramatic changes in this system, which has led some scientific movements to say that we are responsible for global warming. Besides, the International Commission on Stratigraphy - ICS, a scientific body which sets the global standard for time scale that tells the history of the Earth has a working group today that discusses  the advent of a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. This new geological epoch is marked by significant, partially irreversible changes in the Earth System comparable or even far greater in magnitude to other phenomena or natural processes that have previously occurred on the planet as glaciers and volcanic activity. It will  discuss the interactions between human societies and the elements of geodiversityincluding minerals, rocks, soils and reliefs, throughout human history, focusing on the resources needs to support modern urban living and the myriad boundaries, values and services of natural systems and their abiotic elements. There are some cases, including the reality and conflicts in the use of geodiversity in Chapada Diamantina,  a former diamond mining region in the Northeast of Brazil.

Key-words: Socio-natural Systems. Anthropocene. Geodiversity. Chapada Diamantina.