Are we now living in the Anthropocene?
The term Anthropocene, proposed and increasingly employed
to denote the current interval of anthropogenic global environmental
change, may be discussed on stratigraphic grounds. A
case can be made for its consideration as a formal epoch in that,
since the start of the Industrial Revolution, Earth has endured changes sufficient to leave a global stratigraphic signature distinct from that of the Holocene or of previous Pleistocene interglacial phases, encompassing novel biotic, sedimentary, and geochemical change.