Launch of the latest campaign for the Beyond EPICA Oldest-Ice project

The fifth and final drilling campaign of the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) with the support of the French Polar Institute, has just begun at the remote site of Little Dome C in Antarctica, approximately 35 kilometres from Concordia Station.

For two months, an international team of 15 researchers and technicians will work at an altitude of 3,200 metres, where temperatures hover around –35°C. Their mission is to reach the bedrock beneath the ice sheet to determine when it was last exposed to sunlight, key information for establishing the age of the Antarctic ice sheet, and to collect new samples of very ancient ice. To do this, they will carry out additional drilling between 2,350 and 2,590 metres deep in order to obtain enough material to analyse the transition from the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), a period that is essential for understanding the evolution of the Earth’s climate over more than 1.2 million years.

At the same time, initial analyses of the ice cores brought back from the previous expedition have begun in Europe. Preliminary results confirm that the ice cores taken constitute the oldest continuous climate record ever obtained, offering a unique window into past climate and greenhouse gas trends.

The press release is available here.

To learn more about the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project.