We have already been given a glimpse of what this new epoch of Big Data will look like.

FORBES: Welcome to the Real World

That result in the end sparked a new epoch in cosmology, seeking to understand what is driving the expansion, and Prof Perlmutter is enthusiastic that such fundamental problems have been highlighted by the Nobel committee.

BBC: Nobel physics prize honours accelerating Universe find

Recognition was given to the fact that human activity had driven the planet into a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which many Earth-system processes and the living fabric of ecosystems are now dominated by human activities.

UNESCO: keeps momentum going for sustainability driven science after Rio+20 | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The Anthropocene's equivalent of iridium is nitrogen - although there will be other candidates (such as heavy metals, and carbon isotope ratios characteristic of fossil fuel emissions) for geochemists of the far future to identify as the chemical signature of the new epoch's dawn.

BBC: Leaving our mark: Fossils of the future

Noting that we are now in a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, as humans are the major changing force of the Earth system, she explained that the answers provided by technological solutions can only go so far it they do not come with social transformation as well.

UNESCO: Technological solutions and social transformation go hand in hand | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

One argument against the idea that a new human-dominated epoch has recently begun is that humans have been changing the planet for a long time already, indeed practically since the start of the Holocene.

FORBES: On The Anthropocene Age

It was the epoch of developing a bold new computing platform.

ENGADGET: Switched On: A tale of two tablets