[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Are we now living in the Anthropocene?

## Details

**Authors** Zalasiewicz, Jan and Williams, Mark and Smith, Alan and Barry, Tiffany L. and Coe, Angela L. and Bown, Paul R. and Brenchley, Patrick and Cantrill, David and Gale, Andrew and Gibbard, Philip and Gregory, F. John and Hounslow, Mark W. and Kerr, Andrew C. and Pearson, Paul and Knox, Robert and Powell,

**Year** 2008

**Publisher** GSA Today 18(2), 4–8

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Geology

**Secondary disciplines** Environment & Sustainability

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1130/GSAT01802A.1) 
10.1130/GSAT01802A.1

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To assess on stratigraphic grounds whether the current interval of human-driven global change can be treated as a formal geological epoch.

### How they did it (methods)

Stratigraphic argument drawing on biotic, sedimentary and geochemical evidence of change since the Industrial Revolution.

### What they found (results)

The authors argue that since the Industrial Revolution Earth has changed enough to leave a stratigraphic signature distinct from the Holocene and earlier Pleistocene interglacials, with novel biotic, sedimentary and geochemical changes. They hold that a Holocene–Anthropocene boundary could be defined either by a Global Stratotype Section and Point or by a numerical date, and that formal adoption depends largely on its usefulness to scientists working on late Holocene successions.

## Commentary

### In short

A group of stratigraphers asks whether recent human impact has left a record distinct enough in the rock layers to mark a new geological epoch, and concludes that it plausibly has.

### Response

The case turns on drawing a boundary: the Holocene is distinguished from what follows by a signature present in the strata and absent below. That is the distinction pattern in a working scientific form, including the choice between a physical marker and a numerical date. Other patterns are not carried by the argument. It is also a single position paper and not a test of anything.

**Patterns it shows** D

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-10-20

**How to cite this** Zalasiewicz, Jan and Williams, Mark and Smith, Alan and Barry, Tiffany L. and Coe, Angela L. and Bown, Paul R. and Brenchley, Patrick and Cantrill, David and Gale, Andrew and Gibbard, Philip and Gregory, F. John and Hounslow, Mark W. and Kerr, Andrew C. and Pearson, Paul and Knox, Robert and Powell, (2008). Are we now living in the Anthropocene?. GSA Today 18(2), 4–8.