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Letter: Keep the start date of the Anthropocene vague

Published 19 March 2025

From Pauline Keyne, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, UK

The wish, need or preference to pin down a precise official start date for the Anthropocene is curious. The boundary between the preceding epochs, the Pleistocene and Holocene, says Encyclopaedia Britannica, is “around 10,300 ± 200 years” ago. Perhaps it makes sense for the Anthropocene start date to remain uncertain, too (22 February, p 37).

Issue no. 3535 published 22 March 2025

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