This is a major scientific achievement: a 2,800 meter long ice core has been drilled into the Antarctic ice sheet. “The samples collected will make it possible to reconstruct, for the first time, important parameters of the Earth’s climate and the composition of its atmosphere beyond 800,000 years in the past,” specifies a press release. This European project “aims to resolve one of the mysteries of climate science: the cause of the slowdown in the pace of glaciations around a million years ago”.
Longest continuous climate record from ice cores
According to initial results, this ice layer would provide a continuous climate record of at least 1.2 million years. This is the longest continuous climate record from ice cores, surpassing the previous record of 800,000 years. “Thanks to the isotope analysis system prepared for the field and managed by Amaëlle Landais, CNRS researcher at the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory, we are able to see almost in real time during drilling the succession of glacial cycles – interglacials recorded in the ice and thus confirm the preliminary dating,” explains Frédéric Parrenin, CNRS researcher at the Institute of Environmental Geosciences in Grenoble.
Once returned to Europe, the ice cores will be analyzed with the aim of reconstructing the climatic history of the Earth and the composition of its atmosphere during this long period up to our era. Scientists also hope to be able to extract rocks from beneath the ice, the analyzes of which could indicate when the continent was last deglaciated. This pharaonic project will end in May 2026.
