Thaindian News

London, April 5 (IANS) Scientists suggest that human activity, including stunning population growth, sprawling megacities and increased use of fossil fuels, has changed Earth to such an extent that it is entering into a devastating new geological time interval.
It’s the Anthropocene (New Man) Epoch, say the scientists. And they add that the dawning of this new epoch may include the sixth largest mass extinction in the Earth’s history.

The scientists postulate that in just two centuries, humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes to our world that it might be ushering in a new geological time interval and alter the planet for millions of years.

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams, geologists from the University of Leicester; Will Steffen, director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute and Paul Crutzen, Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist of Mainz University come up with evidence for the scale of such unprecedented changes.

Currently, the worldwide geological community is formally considering whether the Anthropocene should join the Jurassic, Cambrian and other more familiar units on the Geological Time Scale, says a University of Leicester release.

The scientists note that getting that formal designation will likely be contentious. But they conclude: “However these debates will unfold, the Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the fate of the other.”

First proposed by Crutzen more than a decade ago, the term Anthropocene has provoked controversy. However, as more potential consequences of human activity - such as global climate change and sharp increases in plant and animal extinctions - have emerged, Crutzen’s term has gained support.

These findings were published in the Environmental Science & Technology.