HAVE we created a new epoch? A group of geologists say the impact of our time on Earth on the rock record should be officially recognised.
In 2002, Nobel prizewinner Paul Crutzen suggested that humans are influencing the rocks being laid down today, and coined the term 鈥淎nthropocene鈥�. The label has been used informally since. Now Jan Zalasiewicz and his colleagues at the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London are urging decision makers at the International Union of Geological Sciences to make it official ()
Formalising the Anthropocene may serve a greater purpose than simply stroking our egos, says Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey. 鈥淚t is a clever way of focusing our minds on what we are doing to the planet.鈥�
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