Anthropocene
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Holocene Epoch |
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| Holocene |
 Welcome to the Anthropocene on YouTube
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100,000,000 Years From Now on YouTube
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The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems. The Anthropocence thus includes, but also transcends, the duration of anthropogenic climate change. As of August 2016[update], neither the International Commission on Stratigraphy nor the International Union of Geological Sciences has yet officially approved the term as a recognized subdivision of geological time, although the Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA) voted to formally designate the epoch Anthropocene and presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress on 29 August 2016.
Scientists in the Soviet Union appear to have used the term "anthropocene" as early as the 1960s to refer to the Quaternary, the most recent geological period. Ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer subsequently used "anthropocene" with a different sense in the 1980s and the term was widely popularized in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen, who regards the influence of human behavior on Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological epoch. A January 2016 report on the climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores suggested the era since the mid-20th century should be recognised as a distinct geological epoch from the Holocene.
In 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London considered a proposal to to make the Anthropocene a formal unit of geological epoch divisions. A majority of the commission decided the proposal had merit and should be examined further. Independent working groups of scientists from various geological societies have begun to determine whether the Anthropocene will be formally accepted into the Geological Time Scale.
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