Scientists Tuesday  announced that the world has entered a new proposed geological era called Anthropocene defined as Earth being profoundly altered by human impact including habitat loss and climate change.

Our planet is divided into different time periods or epochs that usually span millions of years. This new period follows the Holocene that began almost 12-thousand years ago after the last major ice age.

In making the announcement in Berlin, scientists chose Crawford Lake just outside Milton as ground zero to mark the start of the new era. The unusually deep lake chosen over 11 other sites, because it contains the clearest and most pronounced evidence of humankind’s influence on the global rock record.

For 15 years, a panel of scholars have debated whether humans have transformed the planet so much that we’ve plunged it into a new geologic time.