Historic Drilling Campaign Reaches more than 1.2-Million-Year-Old Ice

Antarctica: An international team of scientists successfully drilled a 2,800-meter-long ice core, reaching the bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. These ice samples are expected to unveil, for the first time, critical details about Earth's climate and atmospheric history, extending beyond 800,000 years ago and showing a continuous record of the history of climate and greenhouse gasses as far back as 1.2 million years, and probably beyond.

At the remote Little Dome C site in Antarctica, a research team representing twelve scientific institutions from ten European nations has just achieved a historic milestone for climate science.

As part of the European-funded Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, the team successfully concluded a multi-year drilling campaign, reaching the depth of 2,800 meters, where the Antarctic ice sheet meets the bedrock.

The extracted ice preserves an unprecedented record of Earth’s climate history, continuous information on atmospheric temperatures and pristine samples of old air with greenhouse gases spanning over 1.2-million-year-old ice and probably beyond.

Read more here »