Scientists have identified the geological site that they say best reflects a proposed new epoch called the Anthropocene — a major step toward changing the official timeline of Earth’s history.

The beginning and end of each chunk of time in the geologic time scale is determined by when some species appeared or disappeared from the fossil record. When many species went extinct around the same ...

At the same time, even Ellis acknowledges that the concept of an Anthropocene is useful for scientists, though he argues if it should not be formalized as a geological epoch.

The geologic time scale divides Earth’s 4.6 billion-year story into grandly named chapters. Like nesting dolls, the chapters contain sub-chapters, which themselves contain sub-sub-chapters.

According to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), the professional organization in charge of defining Earth’s time scale, we are officially in the Holocene (“entirely recent ...

Even if the Anthropocene does not yet have an official place on the geologic time scale, the term will “continue to be used not only by earth and environmental scientists, but also by social ...

The Geologic Time Scale-- all 4.56 billion years of it -- is the way Earth scientists converse about time. It started off based on the relative occurrence of fossils and the periods were named after ...

Trees surround Crawford Lake in Milton, Ontario., on Monday, July 10, 2023. A team of scientists is recommending the start of a new geological epoch defined by how humans have impacted the Earth ...

For the past two decades, geologists have wrestled with whether humans have changed the planet enough to kick off a completely new epoch in geological time called the Anthropocene. Now, a ...

Geologists have identified a site in Canada that they say could mark a new epoch called the Anthropocene. But not everyone agrees.