Antarctica is so cold that the snow that falls on the continent accumulates there year after year.
However, during a recent interview on the CORDIS website(European Union Research and Development Community Information Service) from the British Antarctic Survey of the United Kingdom, this is not the case. So, as part of the EPICA project, they recovered ice cores about 800,000 years old, and are now preparing to drill in an area about 2,850 m deep. The age of the ice there may be 1.5 million years.
“Finding the oldest ice is a little more difficult than just drilling deeper and deeper,” the scientists explain. “The reason is geothermal heat that melts the bottom of the thick ice sheet.”
This limits the age of ice, which scientistsmay be found near bedrock. The oldest ice previously discovered in Antarctica formed about 4 million years ago. It is noteworthy that it was found near the surface.
“Imagine a layer of ice slowly flowing downto the edge of the continent, which collides with a mountain range, the researchers add. “This will cause the ice to rise upward, where it will eventually reappear on the surface. We call these areas “blue ice,” and they can be millions of years old.”
However, it is very difficult to accurately determine the age andthis ice. Moreover, these regions do not provide an opportunity to look into the distant past in chronological order. That's why scientists' research is not limited to one type of ice.
“We prefer to find more stableareas of ice flow that look like an upside-down bowl of ice. And then we drill vertically down until we reach the bedrock. Here, every centimeter of depth represents a step back in time. It is important for us to obtain a complete stratigraphic record,” the scientists conclude.
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