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Anthropocene

scientists on lake

Geologists edge closer to defining the Anthropocene

Environment

The Anthropocene Working Group is voting on a so-called Golden Spike, a sedimentary layer somewhere on Earth that best exemplifies the global impact of humans on planet Earth. It’s the last, big task in formally defining the Anthropocene, which is being proposed as a new age in geologic time.

Plastic pollution has become a major concern in Ghana.

Ghana’s fishermen are drowning in plastic. The govt is trying to tackle pollution before it’s too late.

Environment
In this Thursday, July 29, 2021, file photo, birds fly over a man taking photos of the exposed riverbed of the Old Parana River, a tributary of the Parana River during a drought in Rosario, Argentina.

The ’emotional whiplash’ of coming of age during the climate crisis

Climate Change
Underland cave light

A new book explores ‘Underland,’ the deep, dark areas below the Earth

Books
Hazenite

Evidence that we are in the Age of Man: Scientists catalog more human-made minerals

Science
A cave dweller, c. 2015

The Me Epoch: Latest geologic age is self-centered

Science

Unlike previous epochs in the world, this one is massively changed by mankind, geologists argue. “We forget that plastic, frozen foods, antibiotics, the nuclear bomb — all these things are very recent,” says author Dianne Ackerman

An illustration from an 18th century history of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards.

How disease and genocide marked the start of the ‘human age’

Environment

A new study gives us a new date for the start of the human, or Anthropocene age: 1610. That’s when the movement of crops, animals and diseases around the world shows up clearly in the geological record — but it still has some competition.

End of an Epoch

Time to reset the geological clock: the Holocene is over and in its place is the Anthropocene, an epoch named for the human-induced changes to the earth.