Nature, illustration cover
Volume 519 Number 7542 pp129-256
Volume 519 Number 7542 pp129-256
About The Cover
The idea that the Holocene is over and a new human-dominated geological epoch, the Anthropocene, has begun is being extensively discussed. As yet there is no formal agreement on when the Anthropocene may have started and defining the beginning of an epoch as a formal geological unit of time requires locating a global marker of a shift in the Earth’s state recorded in stratigraphic material. Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin assess the anthropogenic signatures in the geological record against the formal requirements for the recognition of a new epoch and identify two dates — 1610 and 1964 — that may mark the beginning of the Anthropocene.
The idea that the Holocene is over and a new human-dominated geological epoch, the Anthropocene, has begun is being extensively discussed. As yet there is no formal agreement on when the Anthropocene may have started and defining the beginning of an epoch as a formal geological unit of time requires locating a global marker of a shift in the Earth’s state recorded in stratigraphic material. Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin assess the anthropogenic signatures in the geological record against the formal requirements for the recognition of a new epoch and identify two dates — 1610 and 1964 — that may mark the beginning of the Anthropocene.
