Who decides?
Proposals for new epochs do not come along every day. When they do, a lengthy procedure swings into action. On this occasion, the first port of call is the working group on the Anthropocene.
The 37-strong team is dominated by geologists, ecologists and climate scientists from around the world. Among their ranks are a lawyer and five women. Their first job is to reach a definition of the Anthropocene. Then they must make a recommendation on whether it should be declared an official unit in the international geological time scale, and at what level. Should it become the modern epoch? Or a more lowly age, making it a subdivision of the Holocene?
The group aims to have its proposal ready for the next International Geological Congress in 2016. There, the group’s dossier will be handed to the subcommission on quaternary stratigraphy, chaired by Martin Head at Brock University in Ontario. If the proposal convinces that group, it goes to the whole of the International Commission on Stratigraphy for approval.
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