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 The dawn of the "Anthropocene" would signal the end of the
Holocene epoch, considered to have begun 11,700 years ago at the end
of the Ice Age. The new term, suggested in 2000, is based on the
Greek word "anthropos", meaning "man".
“Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on
Earth,” said a report in the journal Science by an international
team led by Colin Waters of the British Geological Survey.
“We are becoming a geological agent in ourselves,” Waters told
Reuters.
The start date could be around the mid-20th century, the authors
wrote.
 They said the atomic age, starting with a bomb test in New Mexico in
the United States on July 16, 1945, and the post-war leap in mining,
industry, farming and use of manmade materials such as concrete or
plastics all left geological traces.
Concrete, invented by the Romans, was now so ubiquitous that it
would amount to one kg (2.2 lbs) for every square meter (11 sq feet)
of the planet's surface if spread out evenly, they said.
Any formal recommendation to adopt the Anthropocene as a new
geological epoch would require years of extra research, partly to
pin down a start date, Waters said.
Some experts reckon the Anthropocene began with Europe's Industrial
Revolution in the 18th century. Others would give it a more
widespread origin, dating it from the spread of agriculture several
thousand years ago.
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"Any definition will inform the stories that we tell about human
development," said Professor Simon Lewis of University College
London, who was not involved in the study. He favors 1610 as a start
date, marking the spread of colonialism, disease and trade to the
Americas from Europe.
Erle Ellis of the University of Maryland, a co-author of the study
released on Thursday, said pinning down the Anthropocene would
transform understanding of humanity's role on the planet.
He said it was a "challenge no smaller than a second Copernican
revolution". In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus helped show
the Earth rotates around the sun.
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