{{Short description|Part of the environment that is affected by humans}} The '''anthroposphere''' refers to that part of the Earth system that is inhabited and influenced by humans<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Quilley |first1=Stephen |title=Entropy, the anthroposphere and the ecology of civilization: An essay on the problem of 'liberalism in one village' in the long view |journal=The Sociological Review |date=2011 |volume=59 |issue=1 |pages=65–90 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-954X.2011.01979.x }}</ref>. The term has been included as one of the Earth's spheres<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Huggett |first1=Richard |title=Earth's spheres: Conceptual and definitional debates |journal=Progress in Physical Geography |date=2024 |volume=48 |issue=5–6 |pages=651–670 |doi=10.1177/03091333241275465 |bibcode=2024PrPG...48..651H |doi-access=free }}</ref>, building on a concept coined by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess<ref>Suess E (1875). Die Entsehung der Alpen. Wien: Wilhelm Braumüller</ref>.
While the biosphere is the total biomass of the Earth and its interaction with its systems, the anthroposphere includes the total mass of human-generated systems and materials, including the human population, crops and livestock, and its interaction with the Earth's systems. A recent study estimated the mass of nonliving anthropogenic creations as 1.1 trillion tons in 2020, equivalent to the mass of all living organisms that comprise the biosphere<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Elhacham |first1=Emily |last2=Ben-Uri |first2=Liad |last3=Grozovski |first3=Jonathan |last4=Bar-On |first4=Yinon |last5=Milo |first5=Ron |title=Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass |journal=Nature |date=2020 |volume=588 |issue=7838 |pages=442–444 |doi=10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5|pmid=33299177 |bibcode=2020Natur.588..442E }}</ref>. As human technology has become more evolved, such as that required to launch objects into orbit or to cause deforestation, the impact of human activities on the environment has increased. The anthroposphere is the youngest of all the Earth's spheres, yet has made an enormous impact on the Earth and its systems in a very short time.<ref name="Haff2013">{{cite journal | last=Haff | first=P. K. | title=Technology as a geological phenomenon: implications for human well-being | journal=Geological Society, London, Special Publications | publisher=Geological Society of London | volume=395 | issue=1 | date=2013-10-24 | issn=0305-8719 | doi=10.1144/sp395.4 | pages=301–309}}</ref>
Some consider the term anthroposphere to be synonymous with the noosphere, though the noosphere is often used to refer specifically to the sphere of rational human thought, or ‘the terrestrial sphere of thinking substance’.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Teilhard de Chardin |first1=Pierre |title=The Future of Man |date=1964 |publisher=Collins |location=London |page=157}}</ref> The anthroposphere is also closely related to the concept of the technosphere<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Renn |first1=Jürgen |title=From the History of Science to Geoanthropology |journal=Isis |date=June 2022 |volume=113 |issue=2|pages=377–385 |doi=10.1086/719703 }}https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/719703</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hermann-Pillath |first1=Carsten |title=The Case for a New Discipline: Technosphere Science |journal=Ecological Economics |date=2018 |volume=149 |pages=212–225|doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.03.024 |bibcode=2018EcoEc.149..212H }}</ref> developed by geologist Peter Haff, historian of science Jürgen Renn, and others<ref>{{cite web |last1=Zalasiewicz |first1=Jan |title=The unbearable burden of the technosphere |url=https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/unbearable-burden-technosphere |website=UNESCO |access-date=29 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240818235533/https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/unbearable-burden-technosphere |archive-date=18 August 2024 |date=28 March 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>, which refers to all of the technological objects and systems manufactured and created by humans. The technosphere is distinct from the anthroposphere in these sense that the anthroposphere encompasses not only technologies but cultural, social, economic, and political systems, as well as human behaviors and practices.
Aspects of the anthroposphere include: mines from which minerals are obtained; mechanized agriculture and transportation which support the global food system; oil and gas fields; computer-based systems including the Internet; educational systems; landfills; factories; atmospheric pollution; artificial satellites in space, both active satellites and space junk; forestry and deforestation; urban development; transportation systems including roads, highways, and subways; nuclear installations; warfare.
Technofossils are another interesting aspect of the anthroposphere. These can include objects like mobile phones that contain a diverse range of metals and man-made materials, raw materials like aluminum that do not exist in nature, and agglomerations of plastics created in areas like the Pacific Garbage Patch and on the beaches of the Pacific Islands.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zalasiewicz |first1=Jan |title=Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: A geological perspective |journal=The Anthropocene Review |date=2017 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=9–22|doi=10.1177/2053019616677743 |bibcode=2017AntRv...4....9Z |hdl=11250/2553087 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>
== See also == * Anthropocene * Anthropogenic metabolism * biomass * space junk
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070220083154/http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/ess/Introduction/Anthrosphere.html The Anthroposphere] * Wikiversity:Technology as a threat or promise for life and its forms
Category:Earth sciences Category:Artificial objects
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