If you’ve never flown over southern West Virginia on a clear day and looked out the airplane window you won’t have seen this stark evidence of the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene is the proposed name for our current geologic epoch, the point at which we humans did not just leave traces of our actions but began to alter the whole earth system.  An international working group is studying the evidence to determine whether the new name should be formally accepted.

For evidence of humans’ earth-altering activity, mountaintop removal strip mining can’t be beat.

The video above from Kanawha Forest Coalition starts and ends at airplane height showing just one mountaintop removal mine in late 2015.  It is so large that the bulldozers are dwarfed by the site.

As the video description explains, “the original mining permit proposed stripping 3,113 acres, but was reduced to 2,265 after legal challenges. What you see here is fewer than 500 acres that have been mined so far.  Many of the surrounding mountains and streams will be destroyed if this mine isn’t stopped.”

We humans use bulldozers, explosives, drag lines and dump trucks to level mountains and fill nearby valleys.  To see this in action watch this 2006 excerpt from Bill Moyers Journal.

Recent research by Duke University says that “40 years of mountaintop coal mining have made parts of Central Appalachia 60 percent flatter than they were before excavation.”  Click here for a satellite view and zoom out to see how much of West Virginia has been touched by this activity.

The geologic alteration, habitat destruction, social upheaval and health impacts of mountaintop removal are deep and permanent.  All of it is caused by humans.  We ought to stop.

Do you think there’s enough evidence to call this epoch the Anthropocene?

I do.

p.s. The Spruce #1 Mountaintop Removal Mine is only 202 air miles southwest of Pittsburgh.  It is closer to us than Philadelphia.

(videos by Kanawha Forest Coalition on YouTube)