Recent Stories
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Have Humans Brought About a New Geological Epoch?
Has man's impact brought about a new geological age?
Recent human activity has altered the geological record so fundamentally that a new name, 'The Anthropocene', should be adopted for the time interval starting about 200 years ago.
This is the proposal of Geography's Dr Mark W. Hounslow and others from the Geological Society of London Stratigraphy Commission, set out in an article in the Geological Society of America GSA Today magazine.
The group believes that human activity impacting on patterns of sediment erosion and deposition, changes in the carbon cycle, global temperature rise, and associated extinction of animals and plants, has caused an event which will be observable in the geological record many millions of years into the future.
They argue that this event is sufficiently comparable to other major extinctions and intervals of global environmental change in Earth history that it deserves the name of a new geological epoch.
The commission proposes that the new epoch should be formally recognized by the international body governing the sub-division of geological time. The article has been widely commented on in the popular media.
Wed 20 February 2008
Associated Links
- BBC News: An Epoch in the making - "We may be witnessing a transformation of the Earth as profound as the end of the age of the dinosaurs, and entering a geological period as distinctive as the Jurassic - and the reason is that we are causing it"
- Geography Department - The Geography Department's home page
- GSA Today: Are we now living in the Anthropocene? - the article in the Geological Society of America's magazine
- Lancaster Environment Centre - Innovation, training and research for a sustainable future
Latest News
Lancaster set to receive funding boost to stimulate UK's economy
Lancaster is amongst leading universities who are set to benefit from a £50 million investment in cutting-edge research and innovation projects to drive growth. Lancaster's project will use the strong international reputation and links in China, in particular with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to address the Government's priorities to focus on high-growth SMEs and to increase exports. Using expertise from across the University, it focuses on improved leadership and new technology...
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Fri 17 May 2013
Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars
A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life.
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Thu 16 May 2013
How do we find out about cyber criminals?
Security Lancaster and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics held a workshop to form a new collaborative group who will widen the knowledge of cybercrime and start developing innovative approaches to obtaining information on cyber criminals. The workshop included security researchers and statisticians, solicitors specialising in cybercrime, and experts from government agencies.
Thu 16 May 2013
First, carbon footprints... now you can calculate your 'nitrogen footprint'
Scientists at Lancaster, Virginia and Oxford universities have produced a web-based tool that allows anyone living in the UK to see their own 'nitrogen footprint'.
Story supplied by LU Press Office
Wed 15 May 2013