Leicester experts call for recognition of the Anthropocene epoch

Geologists from the University of Leicester (UK) have joined forces with more than 50 peers to call for an official recognition of a proposed geological epoch.

The Anthropocene has been proposed as a geological time interval starting when humans began to significantly impact the Earth, and continues to the present day.

It has been one of the most influential concepts of the last decade in geological research, with Leicester scientists playing a leading role in its analysis.

While it may not have been formally accepted on to the Geological Time Scale, Leicester’s researchers are amongst a swathe of geologists who say the Anthropocene is real and its effects have drastically and irrevocably changed the living conditions on our planet. They argue it should therefore be treated as a de facto new epoch of Earth’s history.

This message is contained in a Comment article in Nature, published on Monday 29 August, led by Professor Jan Zalasiewicz and Professor Colin Waters, of Leicester’s School of Geology, Geography and the Environment, together with colleagues Julia Adeney Thomas (University of Notre Dame, USA), Simon Turner (University College London) and Martin Head (Brock University, Canada). The article is co-signed by more than 50 other researchers representing many different disciplines and institutes from around the world, including Professor Mark Williams and Professor Jens Zinke also of Leicester’s School of Geology, Geography and the Environment.

The Comment summarises the evidence of massive physical, chemical and biological change on our planet, including of our rapidly warming climate, following many thousands of years when large human populations co-existed with relatively stable planetary conditions, and left abundant traces of their existence and their environmental impacts. But the planet is now sharply different, and the significance of these changes extends far beyond the Earth sciences, to affect the social sciences, the humanities and arts, and to form a now permanent context for the work of planners and decision-makers.

The authors emphasize that it makes sense to precisely delimit the beginning of the Anthropocene at 1952. That year not only marks the prominent upturn of artificial radionuclide fallout around the Earth from H-bomb tests, but closely coincides with many other changes, such as the appearance of plastics and many other novel compounds, and the rapid growth of greenhouse gases.

Professor Zalasiewicz said: “Wide acceptance of such a definition would make for more precise analysis of the many phenomena of the Anthropocene, and help their clear communication. The Anthropocene may have been rejected by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, for now. But it is all too alive in the real world – and that reality should be recognised.”