The geological time scale divides the history of earth into blocks of time known as eras, epochs, periods, and eons. we are currently living in the holocene epoch, a period that began after the last major ice age, but some scientists believe we have entered a new epoch. the anthropocene is a proposed epoch that would begin when human activity first started to significantly affect earth. supporters of this proposed epoch argue that human activity has caused large changes to the geology and diversity of organisms of earth, so this period should be documented in the geological time scale. what do you think? should human activity should be documented on the geological scale? why or why not? if the human population were not the size it was today, how would earth be different? consider all four spheres—geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere—in your answer.

I think the period of human presence on the Earth should not be documented on the geological time scale. Although humans have caused an enormous change in the Earth, this has actually been done over an extremely short period of time. Modern humans appeared roughly 0.8-0.3 million years ago. Civilization appeared roughly 5,000 years ago. However, significant damage and alteration to the geology and the diversity of organisms has only happened in the last few centuries.

If human population were not the size that it is today, the differences would be massive. Agriculture and animal husbandry would be practiced in a much smaller scale. This would allow many ecosystems to remain intact. Moreover, the pollution and garbage that we create would be reduced. Finally, with a reduction in population, living standards tend to rise, as well as education. More educated people would probably mean more environmentally conscious individuals.

most historians agree that gabriel mouton, the vicar of st. paul’s church in lyons, france, is the “founding father” of the metric system. he proposed a decimal system of measurement in 1670. mouton based it on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle of the earth (now called a nautical mile, 1852 meters). he also proposed the swing-length of a pendulum with a frequency of one beat per second as the unit of length (about 25 cm). a pendulum beating with this length would have been fairly easy to produce, thus facilitating the widespread distribution of uniform standards. over the years, his work was revised, improved, and extended by a number of french scientists.

the political sponsor of weights and measures reform in the french revolutionary national assembly was the bishop of autun, better known as talleyrand. under his auspices, the french academy appointed several committees to carry out the work of developing a usable system of weights and measures for france. one of the committees recommended a decimalized measurement system based upon a length equal to one ten-millionth of the length of a quadrant of the earth’s meridian (i.e., one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the north pole).