Man O Man!

cautionman
Originally uploaded by Randuwa

Now we've really done it! We (meaning humankind) have taken a geological process, one that usually takes tens of millions of years and involves the formation of fossils, bands of sedimentary rocks, etc., and we've reduced it to a mere 10,000 years! What am I speaking about? The creation of a new Epoch, of course. The Anthropocene Epoch to be exact.

It seems that we've chopped the present Holocene Epoch off at the sprout. And here's why:

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:
• Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.
• Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.
• Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns.
• Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

Researchers at the University of Leicester, U.K. and the Geological Society of London based their conclusions on the work of Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen.

A google search on this one will yield lots of interesting reading.