The Million Year Ice Core (MYIC) project reached a depth of 400.68 meters at Dome C North, Antarctica. The extracted core contains ice formed more than 13,100 years ago, at the end of the last glaciation. This ice acts as a natural archive, preserving air bubbles and particles from the atmosphere of that era. It provides a direct sample for studying past climate.
The Drilling and Analysis of Frozen Time Capsules ⏳
The technique is based on drilling with a special drill that extracts intact ice cylinders. Each section is a capsule that encapsulated air and aerosols as the snow compacted. In the laboratory, the trapped gases, such as CO2 and methane, and impurities are analyzed. This process allows reconstructing the atmospheric composition and temperatures of remote periods without written records.
Mammoths Already Had Their Own Atmospheric Podcast 🦣
While woolly mammoths grazed, the atmosphere was busy recording its own program, without needing cloud servers. Each snowfall was a new episode, full of dust and bubbles with the climate gossip of the moment. Now scientists do the work of a sound archaeologist, deciphering those ancient whispers trapped in the ice. A natural production that, however, had a very, very long season.