Research by Faculty Curator and Professor Tony Barnosky and the Anthropocene Working Group continues to support the strong need for designating a distinct geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Landscape-altering human activities leave behind distinctive evidence (plastics, aluminum, concrete, black carbon, among others) in the sedimentary record. The group has received widespread media attention and recent articles in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post demonstrate the extent to which interested in topic crosses academic and non-academic boundaries.
On a related topic Tony is the co-author on a research article by Ceballos et al, 2015, on the sixth mass extinction, and it was the #3 most popular academic paper (and shared and read outside and within academia) published in 2015 according to Almetrics. It was also #15 in the top 100 Science papers listed in Discover Magazine.