Welcome to the Anthropocene: Five Signs Earth Is in a Man-Made Epoch
The Last Day of Pompeii, 1833. Artist: Briullov, Karl Pavlovich (1799-1852)
More than two dozen scientists have spent at least six years debating whether humanity's wear and tear on the planet qualifies as a new geological epoch that deserves its own name.
The origins of coal date back to the Carboniferous Period 350 million years ago. Dinosaurs roamed the earth until a meteor brought an end to their Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago. Civilization grew up in the Holocene, which started only 11,700 years ago. Now, these researchers argue, human industry and population have created the Anthropocene, or human epoch. Essentially, they argue, over the past 75 years or so we've installed a new operating system for our 4.5 billion-year-old planet.