Leicester research makes Altmetric Top 100 list for 2016
Research led by our University has been featured in the Altmetric 2016 Top 100, which recognises the most shared and discussed academic research stories of the year around the world.
The study in the Top 100 featuring Leicester research was:
• #84: 'The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene’, with Professors Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams and Colin Waters from the Department of Geology and Dr Matt Edgeworth from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History. Paper available here.
Altmetric summarises the research as: ‘Humankind has certainly made its mark upon Earth, according to this study: 
the Anthropocene era has been found to have distinct environmental markers, including radioactive fallout particulates, plastics, and sea-level rise.’
The University News Centre featured the research earlier this year, working with the team to position the research in the national media, with the BBC, Daily Mail and Express covering the story, among others. Overall over 120 news stories were written about the research and it was shared widely on social media, including 900 tweets.
The Altmetric Top 100 is an annually released list of the academic papers published in the last year that have received the most attention in the sources tracked by Altmetric.
Further research into the Anthropocene by the team of geologists in 2016 has included how human impact has created a ‘plastic planet’, how human impact forms a ‘striking new pattern’ in the Earth’s global energy flow and how Earth’s ‘technosphere’ now weighs 30 trillion tons.
Last year University research also made it into the Altmetric Top 100 for a number of research papers.
An audio interview about the technosphere with Professors Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams is available here: