BACAS: Geological Time & the Anthropocene

Please note this is an external event; please contact BACAS with any enquiries.

There is little doubt that mankind’s impact on the natural environment has increased dramatically in recent decades but… are we now living in a new epoch of geological time: the Anthropocene? Concepts from Earth System Science agree with stratigraphic markers that we went outside the range of conditions of the Holocene in the last 70 years, but does the term Anthropocene belong to geologists anyway?

Geological Time and the Anthropocene examines the way in which geologists establish stratigraphic golden spikes that represent particular instants in geological history, using examples throughout the record.  The particular issues from the idea of an Anthropocene Epoch are then examined. A key idea is that the Earth System is now operating outside its range of the Holocene Epoch, representing the time since the Ice Age.

Ian Fairchild, Emeritus Professor, University of Birmingham