A Canadian lake could mark the start of humanity’s very own geological epoch

One way to view the history of science is as a repeated puncturing of humanity’s claims to be special. In scientific terms, Homo sapiens is an oddly hairless species of ape that has existed for 200,000 years – an eye blink in earth’s 4.6 billion-year history.

For the past couple of decades, though, some scientists have been arguing that perhaps humans do deserve a bit of special recognition after all. In 2000, Dr Paul Crutzen, a Dutch meteorologist and chemist, suggested that human influence over the earth was sufficiently profound that its effects would remain visible in the geological record for millions of years. For that reason, he argued, it was time to bring down the curtain on the Holocene – the current geological epoch, which has lasted for the past 12,000 years or so – and ring in a new one: the Anthropocene.