A team of 29 scientists, drillers, and engineers has spent nearly ten weeks living in tents on the snow in West Antarctica. They drilled over 200 meters into bedrock, a feat never accomplished before in such a remote area.
On their third attempt, they succeeded in pulling up a 228-meter cylinder of mud and rock from beneath the Crary Ice Rise. This is the deepest sediment core ever recovered from beneath an Antarctic ice sheet. The layers in this core reveal a history of changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, challenging previous scientific beliefs about its stability.
To reach the sediment, the team melted a hole through 523 meters of ice using a hot-water drill. They then extracted various types of sediment, with some layers containing surprising evidence of life that requires light, indicating there was once no ice in this area.
Preliminary studies suggest that the sediment core spans about 23 million years, including times when global temperatures were higher than today. This is crucial for understanding how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could behave in a warming climate.
The core has now been transported to Scott Base and will be sent to New Zealand for further analysis. Scientists from over 50 research organisations will study it to learn more about past climate conditions and prepare better forecasts for coastal communities affected by rising sea levels.
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