The 2nd Anthropocene Science Conference
The 2nd Anthropocene Science Conference: Anthropocene 2026 – Scientific Understanding, Technological Breakthroughs and Global Actions, from April 24-28, 2026 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China.
The Second Anthropocene Science Conference, hosted by the Geological Society of China, cordially invites scholars from China and around the world to participate.
The conference will explore a range of topics, including markers and boundaries of the Anthropocene record, the evolution of human-land systems, the impacts of human activities on oceans, lakes, arid regions, and biodiversity, as well as extreme geological events such as ancient floods and soil-water responses. This conference aims to further unite and consolidate the efforts of domestic researchers, advance the development of Anthropocene science, and establish a collaborative platform that integrates multidisciplinary expertise. It seeks to build and expand an information network on the Anthropocene among scientists and scientific organizations both in China and globally. The conference also endeavors to enhance the cooperation framework within the international community in the field of Anthropocene research. Ultimately, it aims to promote the progress of Anthropocene science in China, providing scientific and technological support for the country’s sustainable socio-economic development and the construction of an ecological civilization. For more details contact: Luyuan Zhang, zhangly@ieecas.cn
Anthropocene, AWG and the INQUA Congress 2027 – call for abstracts 15 Feb 2026
The INQUA Congress, held once every 4 years, is an extremely important venue for all Quaternarists to share their research and ideas. The next INQUA session is in Lucknow, India, January 28 to February 3, 2027. See: https://www.inquaindia2027.in/
An entire theme is devoted to the Anthropocene, and we have a special session on:
The Anthropocene epoch: geology, the Earth system, and relevance to society (Conveners: Martin J. Head, Jan Zalasiewicz, Colin N. Waters, Simon Turner)
The Anthropocene epoch, while rejected as an official unit of the geological time scale in 2024, remains a widely used concept and descriptor of Earth’s geological history from the mid-20th century to the present day and beyond, with planetary functions increasingly departing from Holocene norms. Quaternary science must account for this recent, unprecedented and planetary-scale change to remain relevant to wider society. Accumulated fossil-fuel-derived carbon dioxide in the oceans and atmosphere has already ensured that a changed planetary state will continue for hundreds of millennia, and its novel geological signature is indelible, with the biosphere irreversibly altered. But the Anthropocene epoch is more than this, representing a new way to engage with the humanities, social and educational sciences, law, politics and many other branches of enquiry and policy-making. We invite presentations on all aspects of the Anthropocene epoch, and on its transition from the Holocene.“
Please consider submitting an abstract to this special session. The deadline is 15 February, 2026
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The proposal submitted to the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy in 2022