The Holocene continues! For anyone anxious about the impending (retrospective) termination of the present geological epoch, you can rest easy. The International Commission on Stratigraphy has your back:
“The decision is definitive,” says Philip Gibbard, a geologist at the University of Cambridge who is on the panel and serves as secretary-general of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), the body that governs the geologic timescale. “There are no outstanding issues to be resolved. Case closed.”
Of course, in the wonderful world of bureaucratic science, the case is never really closed, and it remains possible that future geologists will submit another proposal to the ICS. Check back in ten years.
*Update: actually, check back now. Some advocates of the new GSSP proposal are questioning the legitimacy of the vote:
the SQS [Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy] chair, Prof Jan Zalasiewicz, from the University of Leicester, said: “The alleged voting has been performed in contravention of ICS statutes. Violation of the statutory rules included those about the eligibility to vote and other vital rules for securing a due scientific process. The [leak] has exposed the SQS, and by default its parent scientific bodies, to a considerable potential for reputational damage.”
Zalasiewicz, supported by one of the SQS vice-chairs, said he had requested an inquiry “including instituting a procedure to annul the putative vote.”
For those interested in a more thorough write-up, the Science news team did a good job:
https://www.science.org/content/article/anthropocene-dead-long-live-anthropocene
And here is another Extinct entry on the Anthropocene, coauthored by Adrian Currie and Derek Turner: