THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS OF THE ARAL SEA BASIN IN THE FRAME OF A NEW TIME-SCALE - THE ANTHROPO-GEOLOGICAL SCALE

At the end of the twentieth century technology has enabled humans to m odify their environment so that in a limited time scale (one generatio n or less) they can produce changes that would require several centuri es or more for natural processes. Human activities move the same volum e of sediments each year as that carried to the sea naturally by river s. Such accelerated changes affect continental dimensions (1000 km or more). In this lies the concept of ''anthropo-geological time scale''.