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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Scientists have found over 200 new minerals [bbc.com] that exist only due to human activity:

Scientists have identified 208 new minerals that owe their existence wholly or in part to humans. Many in the list have been found down old mine tunnels or on slag heaps where water and even fire have had the opportunity to work up novel compounds.

It is another example, the researchers argue, of our pervasive influence on the planet. New minerals and mineral-like compounds are now being formed faster than at anytime in Earth's history, they say. "These 200 minerals are roughly 4% of the total known minerals, but they all occurred in the last couple of thousand years, most in the last couple of hundred years," explained Robert Hazen from the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC.

[...] It is further evidence, if more were needed, that Earth has now entered a new epoch. Currently, geologists label the time since the last ice age, 11,700 years ago, as the Holocene. But there is a push to introduce a new classification to reflect the immense, planet-wide changes driven by humans in recent decades - and for it to be called the Anthropocene Epoch [stratigraphy.org]. The list of new man-mediated minerals bolsters the case.

Also at Washington Post [washingtonpost.com], Scientific American [scientificamerican.com], and The Guardian [theguardian.com].

On the mineralogy of the "Anthropocene Epoch" [geoscienceworld.org] (DOI: 10.2138/am-2017-5875) (DX [doi.org])

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