Plastic rocks, plutonium, and chicken bones: the markers we’re laying down in deep time

Not on our human-scale time, but deep time: the almost unimaginable span of billions of years which have already come and gone. So to declare that we’re in a new geological epoch – and that we’ve left the balmy post-ice age Holocene behind – requires finding evidence of unmistakably clear markers. Plastics and plastic rocks Plastics aren’t naturally produced – they’re manufactured from feedstock such as oil, coal, cellulose and fossil gas. These changes are so profound that it’s as if we’ve bred a new species, according to paleobiology and Anthropocene expert Jan Zalasiewicz, who told AFP: “It usually takes millions of years but here it has taken just decades to produce a new form of animal.” 4. But we really got going during what’s been dubbed the Great Acceleration in the mid-20th century, as many countries got richer, populations exploded, and demand for cars, planes and electricity soared.