anthropocene

nationality

Dutch

prizes and famous lectures

Nobel Prize

occupation / innovator as

chemist

innovator in the field of

chemistry

is a geological period characterized by human impact on the geology of the earth that began two hundred years ago with the invention of the steam engine.

Paul Crutzen and biologist Eugene Stoermer coined the term Anthropocene to describe a new epoch in Earth's history. In their view, a keytransformation in the life of the planet began some two hundred years ago, aroundthe time the steam engine was invented, when human activity 'gradually grew into a significant geological, morphological force' (2000:17). Crutzen and Stoermer argue that the Holocene, the geological epoch that began about 12,000 years ago, has now phased into the Anthropocene. (Kirksey)

Paul CrutzenThinkers

Paul Crutzen