This article discusses the discussions about ending the Holocene Era and initiating the Anthropocene Era, i.e., the era in which human influence on the Earth is the dominant and signatory influence, creating geological and environmental markers distinguishing it from the Holocene.
For Planet Earth, This Might Be the Start of a New Age
A panel of experts has spent more than a decade deliberating on how, and whether, to mark a momentous new epoch in geologic time: our own.
Let's learn a little about it:
"If it makes it all the way, though, geology’s amended timeline would officially recognize that humankind’s effects on the planet had been so consequential as to bring the previous chapter of Earth’s history to a close. It would acknowledge that these effects will be discernible in the rocks for millenniums."
and
"In a 29-to-4 vote in 2019, the [Anthropocene Working Group] group agreed to recommend that the Anthropocene began in the mid-20th century. That’s when human populations, economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions began skyrocketing worldwide, leaving indelible traces: plutonium isotopes from nuclear explosions, nitrogen from fertilizers, ash from power plants.
The Anthropocene, like nearly all other geologic time intervals, needs to be defined by a specific physical site, known as a “golden spike,” where the rock record clearly sets it off from the interval before it."
Unrelated to the article (as far as I know), here's a book about it.
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