Events & Courses

The Geological Society will be celebrating Earth Science Week 2015 on 10 – 18 October and this year the theme is ‘Geological Time’. We invited students from a number of schools to take part in a special event which will explore the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’, a new epoch of geological time.

What is the Anthropocene?

Geologists divide up the Earth’s 4.5 billion year history into distinct units, such as the Jurassic or Quaternary. You may know that we are currently living in the Holocene epoch and some scientists have suggested that human activity has altered the planet sufficiently to establish a new geological time period. This is commonly referred to as the Anthropocene.

In early 2016 an international Working Group will review the evidence and make a judgement about whether we have officially moved into the Anthropocene, and if so, when the ‘start’ date was. The working group is convened by Dr Jan Zalasiewicz of Leicester University. Jan has kindly agreed to come along to speak about his work, and we will also be joined by Dr Alex Standish from UCL, who will talk about the cultural impact of the Anthropocene.

Anthropocene Resources

Download an anthropocene activity back for schools

Find out more about Earth Science Week 2015 Events & Activities