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The case for a lunar anthropocene

Nature Geoscience volume 17, pages 2–4 (2024)Cite this article

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Human exploration of the Solar System began on the Moon during the space race of the mid-twentieth century. To facilitate documentation and study of the human influence on the Moon, we argue it is time to designate a ‘Lunar Anthropocene’.

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Fig. 1: The geologic timescale for the Moon.
Fig. 2: Examples of archaeological artifacts and features on the Moon.

Change history

  • 24 June 2024

    In the version of the article initially published, the Fig. 2g legend originally said “footprints from Apollo 13” which has now been amended to “footprints from Apollo 12” in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H. Erftenbeck, B. O’Leary, C. Runnels, D. Stewart, H. Beran and M. Niquette for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Justin Allen Holcomb & Rolfe David Mandel

  2. Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Karl William Wegmann

  3. Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Karl William Wegmann

Authors
  1. Justin Allen Holcomb
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  2. Rolfe David Mandel
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  3. Karl William Wegmann
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Correspondence to Justin Allen Holcomb.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Holcomb, J.A., Mandel, R.D. & Wegmann, K.W. The case for a lunar anthropocene. Nat. Geosci. 17, 2–4 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01347-4

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