Scientists from the U.S Antarctic Program (USAP) believe that they have found the world's oldest ice core with an approximate age of 1.5 million year old in the Antarctic. Measuring 3,331 meters, they believe that it can be the most critical source of climate history in the Polar Regions.
Because of lacking forces such as erosion, the Antarctic region was able to keep the 1.5 million-year-old ice core which may be the key to uncovering the climate history of the Earth. One particular site included in the researchers' work offer miles and miles of ice which may be used for this purpose.
"Ice cores contain little air bubbles and, thus, represents the only direct archive of the composition of the past atmosphere." said Hubertus Fischer, lead scientist and an experimental climate physicist from Switzerland's the University of Bern, to LiveScience.
These ice cores that were drilled by the scientists could allow them to understand the temperature and air compositions during ancient times.
In the Polar Regions, snow which fell on the icy ground gradually solidify together to form glacial ice. These ice sheets weigh down on the older ice underneath the layers which causes it to extend, stretch and thin out as time progresses. Closest to the bedrock are the oldest of the ice sheets.
Since those high sheets have more thin layers of ice that were accumulated over time, they may contain more mature climate histories. However, scientists getting their hands on these sheets won't be enough to analyze them.
Because geothermal heat impacts these ice layers causing them to melt and shifts in the bedrock makes a mess of the layers at the bottom, the scientists found a way to decide which of the oldest ice in the Antarctic region is best for extracting highly valuable ice cores. They gathered data on climate and ice conditions then created a model that simulated the heat and ice trends on the frigid region.
The team found that the most favorable locations to drill on are at the Domes and the East Antarctica bottom parts. Aside from these, the South Pole and the highest peaks of the ice sheets are also good ice core drilling sites.
To further narrow down the best site to drill for ice cores, the scientists would soon analyze the temperature at the ice sheet's bottom as well as the thickness of the ice there.
The details of the discovery were further described on the Nov. 5 issue of the online journal Climate of the Past.
