According to a group of geologists we humans have changed the Earth so much we should stop calling this geological age the Holocene epoch. Instead they want us to call it the anthropocene (press release).

In Nature in 2002 Paul Crutzen wrote an article stating, “It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene — the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia. The Anthropocene could be said to have started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane. This date also happens to coincide with James Watt’s design of the steam engine in 1784.”

Then in 2003 Nature ran an editorial headlined, “Welcome to the Anthropocene” (subscription required) and we revisited the topic again in 2004.

Now researchers have decided to really push for the adoption of the new title.

In a new paper in the Geological Society of America’s GSA Today they state, “Formal adoption of this term in the near future will largely depend on its utility, particularly to earth scientists working on late Holocene successions.”

That point remains to be seen but for now the name isn’t proving too popular with readers of Wired. In an online vote more people favour the Plasticene or Mr Splashy Pants (the latter title became an internet phenomenon last year when Greenpeace asked people to name a whale).

Blogger Andrew Alden also looks at the paper, and seems to be in agreement with the new paper:

But where would be the base of this new time unit? The researchers consider some heavy-duty markers, like the radioactivity pulse of the 20th-century atomic bomb tests or the fateful rise in atmospheric CO2. But their favored event, the global geochemical signals and tree-ring disturbance from the 1815 eruption of Tambora, is also great and will suffice.

Image: Earth / via NASA’s Visible Earth

Hat tip: Wired