A geologic task force recommends marking this new epoch's start in the small but deep, pristine Crawford Lake outside Toronto, Canada.
Humanity etched its way into Earth's geology, atmosphere and biology with such strength and permanence, a special team of scientists figures we have shifted into a new geologic epoch of our own creation: the Anthropocene.
People are also reading… The burning of coal, oil and gas that's changing Earth's climate and atmosphere, nuclear bomb detonations spotted in soil around the globe, plastics and nitrogen from fertilizers added on land and dramatic changes to species that make up the rest of the Earth characterize the new epoch, scientists said.
Because Crawford Lake is 79 feet deep but only 25,800 square feet in area, the layers on the lake bottom are pristine showing what's in the air and on Earth each year, scientists said. "The hubris is in imagining that we are in control," said former U.S. White House science adviser John Holdren, who was not part of the working group of scientists and disagrees with its proposed start date, wanting one much earlier."The reality is that our power to transform the environment has far exceeded our understanding of the consequences and our capacity to change course.
They propose we moved from the Holocene Epoch, which started about 11,700 years ago at the end of an ice age, to the Anthropocene Epoch.
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