Bee 1.2 million years old, a newly exposed Antarctic region ice core represents the oldest known ice on Earth. The 2.7 kilometer long ice core was recovered more than 2,800 meters underground, where the Antarctic ice sheet meets the bedrock. The drilling was completed earlier this month at a so-called location Small Dome C near the Concordia Research Station in southeastern Antarctica. An international team of scientists representing 10 countries from the European Union is funded Beyond EPICA Oldest ice project braved temperatures of -31 degrees Fahrenheit to restore this piece of Earth’s natural history.
“From preliminary analyzes recorded at Little Dome C, we have a strong indication that the upper 2,480 metres [8,136 feet] contain a climate record dating back 1.2 million years in a high-resolution record, with up to 13,000 years compressed into one meter of ice,” says Julien Westhoff, lead scientist in the field and postdoctoral student at the University of Copenhagen. said in a statement.
This newly mined ice preserved a record of our planet’s climate history, ongoing information about atmospheric temperatures, and some clear samples of ancient air containing greenhouse gases.
“This is the longest continuous record of our past climate from an ice core, and it could…
interlink between the carbon cycle and the temperature of our planet,” Carlo Barbante, professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, senior associate member of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, and coordinator of Beyond EPICA, said in a statement.
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The team used radio-echo technology and advances in ice flow modeling to determine exactly where to drill. The lowest 200 meters of the ice core above the bedrock is made of older ice that has been heavily deformed. The team thinks this is possible mixed or refrozen and of unknown origin. Further analysis could help test some previous theories about the behavior of refrozen ice beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet and reveal more about East Antarctica’s glacial history.
Importantly, this deep look into the ice could answer one of our planet’s greatest climate mysteries: what happened when glacial cycles were disrupted about 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago. Some scientists believe that our ancestors nearly became extinct during these massive climate changes.
Ice cores and other geological samples are a crucial part of how scientists understand our planet’s history and how the climate is changing. They can capture air bubbles and particles that show temperature changes and what greenhouse gases were present even store viruses. This helps scientists map out how the climate may have changed over time.
[ Related: See 24,000 years of climate history at a glance. ]
Data from other ice cores has already helped scientists Linking the current temperature increase to greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.
This new core will be that returned to Europe aboard an icebreaker that must keep it at -58 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists will then analyze the ice samples and see if they can even find records older than 1.2 million years. Dating the underlying rocks will hopefully give scientists a good idea of the last time this part of Antarctica was ice-free.