Working Groups

The SQS currently has three Working Groups:

  • The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) was established in June 2009 to examine the possibility of recognising an Anthropocene division either within the Holocene or separated from it. A formal proposal was submitted to the SQS on October 31, 2023 that the Anthropocene be accepted as a stage/epoch terminating the Holocene, with a GSSP in a core recovered from Crawford Lake, near Milton, Ontario, Canada that would also define the Crawfordian Stage/Age. The AWG is led by Prof. Colin Waters.
  • The Middle–Upper Pleistocene Subseries was ratified in name only on 30th January 2020, with a provisional age of 129 000 years. A working group has been established to define this boundary by means of a GSSP.
  • The Middle Pleistocene second stage boundary working group was established in August 2023 to examine the possibility of a second stage for the Middle Pleistocene Subseries. This would terminate the Chibanian Stage.

Listed below are both active and completed boundary working groups.