Showing posts with label Anthropocene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthropocene. Show all posts

Monday, June 6, 2011

Call for recognition of Earth's ‘human epoch’

These are epoch-making times. Literally. There is now “compelling evidence,” according to an influential group of geologists, that humans have had such an impact on the planet that we are entering a new phase of geological time: the Anthropocene.Millions of years from now, they say, alien geologists would be able to make out a human-influenced level in the accumulated layers of rock, in the same way that we can see the imprint of dinosaurs in the Jurassic, or the explosion of life that marks the Cambrian.Now the scientists are pushing for the epoch to be officially recognised.