The Anthropocene: epoch, event, historical phase or nothing at all?

Comment #252 Valentí Rull @ 2025-11-14 22:10

Thank you very much for your comments. I will take them into account when revising my manuscript before publication.

Comment #251 Matthew Edgeworth @ 2025-11-14 19:55

In so far as the piece balances the respective merits of epoch versus event, and considers how to move forward from where we are, this is a valuable discussion.

However I would put it to you that the paper takes an unnecessarily gloomy tone. It veers towards portraying the current situation of non-formalization in a largely negative light, whereas actually the concept of the Anthropocene has flourished and continues to flourish without the imposition of 1950 or 1952 as starting date. For at least half of the many hundreds of papers written on the Anthropocene, and for all the numerous journals that have come into being to discuss Anthropocene issues, there is no specification of any particular start date. Many in the wider field see it as an entirely positive that the concept remains a loosely-defined and informal term.

When you say the Anthropocene has lost its identity, I think you are reflecting the view of the AWG members who are understandably disappointed in the rejection of their specific proposal about date of start and status as epoch, but that is not the view of the many Anthropocene researchers who are working outside of chronostratigraphic conceptual frameworks. and thereby not constrained by the notion that the Anthropocene must be accorded a precisely defined date of onset, or the assumption that it must be an epoch on the geological timescale.

You ask: should we remove this term from scientific and non-scientific literature and common language? Of course not. The term Anthropocene is here to stay, and remains immensely valuable as an umbrella term for an interdisciplinary field of research into human-induced transformations of the Earth system that concern us all.

I appreciated your discussion of the Anthropocene as Event, and the clear distinction drawn between this and the Anthropocene Modification Episode (AME).

It is worth considering the extent to which the Anthropocene as event argument is more than just an alternative to the Anthropocene as epoch concept, but also an evolution or development from it, in order to make it better fit with physical stratigraphic evidence. Three of the researchers involved in writing the papers on the event were actually longstanding and extremely active members of the AWG. The idea of the event originated in the perception that physical stratigraphic evidence indicated much more diachronous transformation than the sudden transition from one state of the Earth system to another that was being suggested by epoch proponents.

Before the AWG committed itself through a series of votes to the mid 20th century onset argument, there was already work going on within the AWG along event lines. I would point you for example to the AWG paper on: ‘Diachronous Beginnings of the Anthropocene’ (Anthropocene Review 2015). As this article shows, an incipient view of the Anthropocene understood as time-transgressive happening was taking shape long before 2022. Much of the physical stratigraphic evidence assembled by the AWG before its fateful decision to go all out for a mid-20th century start actually fits much better into an event framework than an epoch one. Hard for the AWG to admit, but the idea of the Anthropocene event actually has deep roots within the thinking of the AWG itself!

A difference between the epoch and event positions is that the latter starts with physical stratigraphic evidence and proceeds from there to construct its arguments, while the former does it the other way round. You make the important point that the AWG first decided on the starting date and then sought the stratigraphic evidence to fit, reversing the usual and accepted way in which scientific investigation proceeds. Those of us who resigned from the AWG (to work on the Anthropocene Event) did so because we felt that the AWG were not being sufficiently scientifically rigorous in this respect, amongst other reasons.

Excellent that you do actually take note of the reasons the IUGS gave in rejecting the proposal.

I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you make the mistake of assuming that just because a proposition is precise it must be scientific. That is a common fallacy. Precision is not always equivalent to accuracy. It would be inaccurate to impose a precise start upon a process more accurately described in time-transgressive terms. The implication throughout your paper, and especially in the Conclusion, is that any definition of the Anthropocene that does not give an exact starting date is necessarily unscientific. Clearly this is wrong. Your final sentence unfortunately reflects the tone of the embittered recent AWG media campaign, imputing a lack of scientific rigour to all who disagree with their particular point of view, as though they alone speak for science and the scientific method. But your overall argument, in balancing different views on the Anthropocene and seeking a way forward, deserves a more considered conclusion (and perhaps a more positive outlook?)

It's great that you are working, as I discern, towards a more synthetic and less divisive approach to the Anthropocene.

Happy to engage in further discussion on any of the above points.

Matt

Matthew Edgeworth, 14 November 2025