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“Sufficient evidence has emerged of stratigraphically significant change (both elapsed and imminent) for recognition of the Anthropocene — currently a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change — as a new geological epoch to be considered for formalization by international discussion.”

– A scientific team led by Jan Zalasiewicz, writing in the February issue of GSA Today, the magazine of the Geological Society of America. Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams of the University of Leicester and colleagues at the Geological Society of London argue that human activity has sufficiently altered the environment that the Holocene era has ended and a new era, the Anthropocene has begun — an idea “first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen” that has gained added momentum lately, according to LiveScience.

Source: LiveScience, Jan. 27.

For more information, see: GSA Today article, “Are we now living in the Anthropocene?” abstract and full text.