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Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene

Nature volume 540, pages 192–193 (2016)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 19 January 2017

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The causes of Earth's transition are human and social, write Erle Ellis and colleagues, so scholars from those disciplines must be included in its formalization.

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Change history

  • 13 January 2017

    An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that proposals for defining this epoch will be put to the International Geological Congress for ratification.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Erle Ellis is in the Department of Geography &amp,

    Erle Ellis

  2. Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.,

    Erle Ellis

  3. Mark Maslin is in the Department of Geography, University College London, UK.,

    Mark Maslin

  4. Nicole Boivin is at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.,

    Nicole Boivin

  5. Andrew Bauer is in the Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.,

    Andrew Bauer

Authors
  1. Erle Ellis
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  2. Mark Maslin
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  3. Nicole Boivin
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  4. Andrew Bauer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erle Ellis.

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Related external links

Working Group on the ‘Anthropocene’

Phys.Org: The Anthropocene is here: scientists

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Ellis, E., Maslin, M., Boivin, N. et al. Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene. Nature 540, 192–193 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/540192a

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