'It's duration is that of an average human lifespan,' he wrote in a pointed commentary, published by the Geological Society of America. Pictured is the pattern of global migration exhibited by Homo sapiens from the Paleolithic culture to present. The latest research follows a study earlier this year that claimed humans have tipped the Earth into a new chapter of geological history that began around 1950 The wipeout of non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period is one such die off, though far from the most dramatic. Past shifts in the biosphere - the realm of the living - show up in sediment and rock, especially mass extinctions marking boundaries when up to 95 per cent of all lifeforms disappeared within the geological blink of an eye. Micro-plastics, for example - a synthetic, man-made substance - 'are now components of sediment around the world, both in land and in the sea.'Īnd the rise in atmospheric CO2 shows up in ice cores reaching back tens of thousands of years. 'There's a whole array of potential signals out there.' 'We are spoiled for choice,' he told AFP. This, however, is not a problem when it comes to the Anthropocene, said Zalasiewicz. If it can't be measured in rocks, lake sediments, ice cores, or other such formations - the criteria used to determine dozens of distinct eons, era, periods and ages going back four billion years - it doesn't count. Dark blue, shows coal dark brown, oil green is natural gas purple shows nuclear light blue is hydro orange brown is biomass. Pictured is the produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750. Humans have created a 'striking new pattern' in the planet's global energy flow. Scientists refer to the period starting from 1950 as the 'Great Acceleration', and a glance at graphs tracking a number of chemical and socio-economic changes make it obvious why.Ĭoncentrations in the air of carbon dioxide, methane and stratospheric ozone surface temperatures, ocean acidification, marine fish harvesting, and tropical forest loss population growth, construction of large dams, international tourism - all of them take off from about mid-century.

'If adopted - and we're a long way from that - the Holocene would finish and the Anthropocene would formally be held to have begun.' 'Our working model is that the optimal boundary is the mid-20th century,' said Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester. That approval process is likely to take at least two years and requires ratification by three other academic bodies.īut after seven years of deliberation, the 35-strong Working Group has unanimously recognised the Anthropocene as a reality, and voted 30-to-three for the transition to be officially registered.

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