For over 60 years, British Antarctic Survey scientists have been the cool detectives of Antarctica. Their latest quest at Little Dome C in East Antarctica has taken them deep—drilling down to 2,800 meters into the ice sheet—to extract ice cores dating back between 1.2 and 1.5 million years!
This high-stakes operation, conducted alongside experts from 10 European countries, has seen them carefully recover 4.5-meter sections that each took nearly two and a half hours to extract. The team gathered a total of 190 meters of ice, which is now preserved in Cambridge at a chilling -25°C, waiting to divulge its ancient secrets.
Building on the legacy of their groundbreaking 1985 discovery of ozone layer thinning—an insight that helped propel global bans on ozone-depleting chemicals—this new project aims to enrich our understanding of past climate shifts, shedding light on current changes in the earth's environment.
For young science buffs and explorers alike, this discovery is like opening a time capsule filled with earth-shattering insights 🌍❄️! It’s a reminder that every slice of ice holds a story, and with every new finding, we move one step closer to understanding our planet's dynamic history.
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British scientists seek the climate secrets of ancient Antarctic ice
cgtn.com
