Of the 35 members, 20 voted in a majority sweep to recognize the new time period as an epoch, not an age of lower rank or of higher rank like Jurassic or Cretaceous.
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Thanks to all our plastic pollution and nuclear testing, humans have cut short a 11,700-year-old geological epoch known as the Holocene, and have initiated a new, human-influenced epoch called the Anthropocene, experts say.
Geologist and chair of the WGA Jan Zalasiewicz said the Anthropocene Epoch illustrated the “great acceleration” of the 20th century which saw a distinct change in the carbon and nitrogen levels in the atmosphere.
“A$3 fter studying the environmental impact of humans over the past 50,000 years, researchers. have now not only confirmed that the new epoch is definitely here, they’ve also pinpointed that it started all the way back in 1610 – most likely as a result of Europeans colonising the Americas.”
The AFP reports that the declaration of an official end to the Holocene-the current, almost 12,000-year-long epoch that began at the end of the last major ice age-is a good two years off. The group, which voted 30 to three in favour of formally designating the Anthropocene, presented its recommendation to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town. Previously, we were in the Holocene epoch, which lasted 12,000 years and is marked by the stable climate that followed the last ice age.
“Human action has certainly left traces on the earth for thousands of years, if you know where to look”, he said. If determining the signals and the starting point of the Anthropocene takes so much less time, it “would be lightning speed for such a geological decision, which in the past would have taken decades and even centuries to make”, according to a recent article in the Guardian.
“It is affecting the functioning of the whole earth system”.
Mr Zalasiewicz said despite sounding promising, the declaration of the Anthropocene is not yet official.
The Anthropocene will be defined geologically by phenomena as diverse as the effects of nuclear bomb tests, plastic pollution, concrete and soot from power stations.
“We are spoiled for choice”, he said.
Markers for the Antthropocene include increased carbon dioxide emissions, sea level rise, global mass extinction of species and decreased biomass. “If all of these conditions can be fulfilled, then the Anthropocene would become a formal part of the Geological Time Scale”, the WGA said. “They see it very rightly as the backbone of geology and they do not amend it lightly”, Zalasiewicz told The Guardian.
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“But I think we can prepare a pretty good case”.
