49 MAY 2025 WorldWide Drilling Resource® Drilling Campaign Reaches 1.2 Million-Year-Old Ice Adapted from Information by Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice As part of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, a research team from 12 European scientific institutions made a significant breakthrough in climate science at the remote Little Dome C site in Antarctica. The team completed a successful drilling campaign, reaching a depth of almost 9200 feet where the Antarctic ice sheet and bedrock meet. This ice core preserves a unique and comprehensive record of earth’s climate history, offering continuous information on atmospheric temperatures, as well as untouched samples of ancient air containing greenhouse gases that are at least 1.2 million years old or older. “We have marked a historic moment for climate and environmental science,” said 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 (Cnr-Isp), and Coordinator of Beyond EPICA. “This is the longest continuous record of our past climate from an ice core, and it can reveal the interlink between the carbon cycle and temperature of our planet. This achievement was made possible through the extraordinary collaboration of various European research institutions and the dedicated work of scientists and logistical personnel in the field over the last ten years.” Below the ice storing the climate record of over 1.2 million years, the lowest 690 feet of the ice core above the bedrock is comprised of heavily deformed old ice of unknown origin, which may have been mixed or refrozen. Advanced analysis can help test existing theories about the behavior of refrozen ice under the Antarctic ice sheet and uncover East Antarctica’s glaciation history. By analyzing the ice core, scientists hope to gain unprecedented understanding of the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, a fascinating era between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago that saw glacial cycles slow down dramatically. One of the most enduring mysteries of climate science is the driving force behind this change, which this project aims to unravel. “The precious ice cores extracted during this campaign will be transported back to Europe onboard the icebreaker Laura Bassi, maintaining the [-58ºF (-50°C)] cold chain, a significant challenge for the logistics of the project,” said Gianluca Bianchi Fasani, Senior Researcher at ENEA-UTA (National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development - Antarctica Technical Unit) and head of ENEA logistics for Beyond EPICA. “To reach this goal, a strategy was developed involving the design of specialized cold containers and precise scheduling of the National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA) air and naval assets.” The European teams have achieved remarkable success in the Antarctic plateau’s harsh environment, completing over 200 days of drilling and ice core processing across four field seasons. Once the ice cores arrive in Europe, the project will shift its focus to analyzing the samples to uncover the earth’s climate and atmospheric history. The core’s basal sections may contain pre-Quaternary ice, while dating of the underlying rocks will reveal when the region was last ice free. View into the roof opening of the drill tent. Photo courtesy of Lawer©PNRA/IPEV. Measuring ice older than 700,000 years. Photo courtesy of Westhoff©PNRA/IPEV. ENV
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk4Mzk=