Geologists say Earth may be in new epoch

LEICESTER, England, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- British geologists said humans have changed the planet so much that it has brought an end to one epoch of the Earth's history.

Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams at the University of Leicester and colleagues on the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London suggest the Holocene epoch has ended and the new Anthropocene has begun, the university said Friday in a release.

The report, published in the journal GSA Today, was based on a review of a 2002 proposal by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, who suggested the Earth had left the Holocene and started the Anthropocene era because of the global environmental effects of increased human population and economic development.

The scientists said the Anthropocene epoch should be formally added to the Earth's geological timescale.

"Sufficient evidence has emerged of stratigraphically significant change (both elapsed and imminent) for recognition of the Anthropocene --currently a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change-- as a new geological epoch to be considered for formalization by international discussion," the researchers said in a statement.