The dawning of the age of Anthropocene

Scientists think it’s time we had a new geological epoch to recognise the impact of human beings on the planet.

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30th July, 2011

As a geology student in the late 1980s, I learnt a mnemonic to remember the various geological periods, epochs and ages that make up Earth’s history. It started with Cambridge (for Cambrian) and ended with horses (for Holocene), with some Jolly Catholics (Jurassic, Cretaceous) somewhere in the middle. Now some scientists are suggesting we add a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, defined by the impact of human beings on the planet. The idea that the Earth’s rocks were deposited in a sequence of layers, each representing a different time period and containing distinctive fossils, ...

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