Environmental security

The Atomic Age Ushered In the Anthropocene, Scientists Say

Humans are living in a new geologic epoch, one that is largely of their own making, scientists say.

In a new study, published in this week’s issue of the journal Science, an international team of geoscientists concluded that the impact of human activity on the Earth is so widespread and persistent that it warrants formal recognition with the creation of a new geologic time unit, which they propose to call the Anthropocene epoch.

“We’re saying that humans are a geological process,” says study coauthor Colin Waters, a geologist with the British Geological Survey in the U.K. “We are the dominant geologic force shaping the planet. It’s not so much river or ice or wind anymore. It’s humans.”