I am a field geologist and palaeontologist. For the first half of my career I worked essentially as a practical hands-on geologist, making geological maps of terrains ranging from the ancient rocks of the Welsh mountains to the very young deposits of the English Fenland. Subsequently, at the University of Leicester, I have taught across a wide range of courses in geology, and carried out research into the history of environments of Earth (both at the surface and below ground) over the past half billion years. In the last few years, my life has been increasingly taken up with the remarkable geology that humans are making, in the analysis of the Anthropocene concept.