"Researchers will soon announce their choice of a site to serve as the “golden spike” for the Anthropocene epoch, a controversial proposal to designate an official geological span of time marked by humanity’s indelible effects on the planet.
The Anthropocene Working Group, assembled by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, already picked the 1950s, an era of surging fossil fuel use, as the start of the epoch. And the group has reviewed 12 candidate sites around the world that contain lake muds, ice cores, or other features that clearly document the shift in emissions and could be used to formally define the new epoch. After the working group announces its choice, three more committees will have to approve it. Should the definition be voted down, it cannot be reconsidered for 10 years. Passage is far from guaranteed.
Many geologists acknowledge the unprecedented changes wrought by human activity but question the need to change a system that describes millions of years of geologic time to mark shorter lived events driven by humanity." "Some of the strongest candidates come from lake bottoms that accumulate muds in thin annual layers, creating high-resolution records. Crawford Lake in Canada’s Ontario province, only some 200 meters wide but 25 meters deep, is one. In cores of mud from the lake, changes seen since the 1950s stand out vividly, including the bomb spike and an “off the charts” increase in soot from local industry, says Francine McCarthy, a micro-paleontologist at Brock University. “We have a really ideal site,” she says."
Today's flower in the Niagara Falls Greenhouse is the beautiful Clerodendron. | 
