Such units are typically stratiform, and based upon superposition (where Upper = Younger and Lower = Older). However, at the present time, the deep, cross-cutting roots of the potential Anthropocene Series can, for practical purposes, be

effectively resolved in both time and space. Their significance can only grow in the future, see more as humans continue to mine the Earth to build their lives at the surface. We thank Paolo Tarolli for the invitation to speak on this topic at the European Geosciences Union, Vienna, 2013, and Jon Harbor and one anonymous referee for very useful comments on the manuscript. Simon Price is thanked for his comments. Colin Waters publishes with the permission of the Executive Director, British Geological Survey, Natural Environment Research

Council and the support of the BGS’s Engineering Geology Science area. “
“Fire evolved on the Earth under the direct influence of climate and the accumulation of burnable biomass at various times and spatial scales (Pausas and Keeley, 2009 and Whitlock et al., 2010). However, since humans have been using fire, fire on Earth depends not only on climatic and biological factors, but also on the cultural background of how people manage ecosystems and fire (Goudsblom, 1992, Pyne, 1995, Bowman et al., 2011, Coughlan and Petty, 2012 and Fernandes, 2013). A number of authors, e.g., Metabolism inhibitor Pyne (1995), Bond et al. (2005), Pausas and Keeley (2009), Bowman et al. (2011), Coughlan and Petty (2012), Marlon et al. (2013), have been engaged in the demanding task of illustrating this synthesis, in order to track the signature of fire on global geography and human history. In this context, spatio-temporal patterns of fire and related impacts on ecosystems and landscapes are usually described

by means of the fire regime concept (Bradstock et al., 2002, Whitlock et al., 2010, Bowman et al., 2011 and McKenzie et al., 2011). A wide set of fire regime definitions exists depending on the aspects considered, the temporal and spatial scale of analysis and related choice of descriptors (Krebs et al., 2010). In this review we consider mafosfamide the fire regime as the sum of all the ecologically and socially relevant characteristics and dimensions of fire occurrence spanning human history in specific geographical areas. With this line of reasoning, special attention is paid to the ignition source (natural or anthropogenic) and, within anthropogenic fires, to the different fire handling approaches (active fire use vs. fire use prohibition) in land management. Beside the overall global variability of biomes and cultures, common evolutionary patterns of fire regimes can be detected worldwide in relation to the geographical extension and intensification of human pressure on the land (Hough, 1932, Goudsblom, 1992, Pausas and Keeley, 2009 and Bowman et al., 2011).