When people talk about the “Anthropocene,” they typically picture the vast impact human societies are having on the planet, from rapid declines in biodiversity to increases in Earth’s temperature by ...

Such massive planetary changes did not begin all at once at any single place or time. That’s why it was controversial when, after over a decade of study and debate, an international committee of ...

The field’s governing body ratified a vote by scientists on the contentious issue, ending a long effort to update the timeline of Earth’s history. By Raymond Zhong The highest governing body in ...

The scientist Paul Crutzen grew tired of the Holocene 24 years ago. The geologic epoch had reigned for 11,700 years, ever since the sprawling ice sheets covering North America and Europe began melting ...

Earth's 4.5 billion year geological history is full of death and rebirth, mass extinctions and explosions of biodiversity, with different periods often marked by cataclysmic changes that radically ...

These ten misconceptions underplay how much we have altered the global environment and undermine the new perspective we need to deal with a drastically changed world Jan A. Zalasiewicz, Scott L. Wing ...

Soren Brothers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

A few months into the third millennium, a group called the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (I.G.B.P.) held a meeting in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Among the researchers in attendance was Paul ...

Erle C. Ellis is a former member of the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. He is a member of the American Association of Geographers. On March 4, 2024, the ...

A Factoryscape in the Potteries', (1938). Smoke from chimneys in the industrial area known as the Staffordshire Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent. Due to the local availability of clay and coal, North ...