Even if the Anthropocene does not yet have an official place on the geologic time scale, the term will “continue to be used not only by earth and environmental scientists, but also by social scientists, politicians and economists, as well as by the public at large,” the statement from the geological union said. “It will remain an invaluable descriptor of human impact on the earth system.”
The statement did not directly address Dr. Zalasiewicz’s and Dr. Head’s concerns about the voting process. It said only that the committee members had acted with integrity and had wide expertise as geologists. “The scientific decision is clear, and the specialists do not see any value in adding a new epoch in the geological record,” the union’s president, John Ludden, said by email.
Even though the voting results have been declared valid, Dr. Head, an earth scientist at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, said he expected the Anthropocene episode to prompt geologists to change their procedures for deciding on future updates to the time scale.
It sounds like most others will, too
FTA: