At a very remote site in Antarctica, scientists have discovered a precious sample of our planet's history.
It is a core of ice 2,800 meters, or about 1.7 miles, long. But it's not just the length that matters. In the ice there are preserved pockets of Earthand air from some 1.2 million years ago, if not more. Previous ice cores provided direct evidence of our planet's climate and environment up to 800,000 years ago.
So, this is a big leap. The team drilled so deep that they reached the foundation of the continent.
“We have marked a historic moment for climate and environmental science,” said Carlo Barbante, polar scientist and coordinator of the ice core initiative called “Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice,” in a statement.
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An international group of researchers excavated the ice at Little Dome C Field Camp in Antarcticalocated 10,607 feet (3,233 meters) above sea level. They sent radar down into the subsurface and used computer modeling of the ice flow to determine where this ancient ice was likely to be. And they were right.
This was no easy task. At the top of the Antarctic plateau, summers average minus-35 degrees Celsius, or minus-31 degrees Fahrenheit.
Location of Little Dome C research center in Antarctica.
Location of Little Dome C research center in Antarctica. Credit: Beyond EPICA / EU
An ice core drilled from the recent Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice expedition.
An ice core drilled from the recent Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice expedition. Credit: Scoto © PNRA / IPEV
Although paleoclimatologists, who study Earth's past climate, have reliable methods for our indirect measurement the deep history of the planet – with proxies such as fossil shells and compost made from algae – direct evidence, through direct air, is of great scientific value. For example, past ice cores have revealed the levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere today. sky – they are at their highest level in about 800,000 years. he is incontrovertible evidence of Earth's history.
Scientists expect this even older ice core, however, to reveal secrets about a period known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, which lasted about 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago. Mysteriously, the intervals between glacial cycles – where ice sheets spread over many continents and then retreated – decreased dramatically, from 41,000 years to 100,000 years.
“The reasons behind this movement remain one of the ongoing mysteries of climate science, which this project aims to solve,” said the drilling campaign, which was coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences. at the Italian National Research Council, in a statement.
Now, the drilling is over. But the campaign to transport the ice safely back to laboratories, and then study this atmosphere that is over a million years old, has begun.
“The precious ice cores produced during this campaign will be transported back to Europe on board the ice machine Laura Bassi, maintaining the cold range of minus-50 degrees Celsius , a big challenge for the logistics of the project,” explained Gianluca Bianchi Fasani, the head. of logistics ENEA (National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development) for the Beyond trip EPIC.
These historic ice cores travel in “special cold ships” as they go around the globe, far from the depths of their home in Antarctica.
