An international team of researchers from twelve institutions across ten European countries has achieved an unprecedented milestone in climate sciences. This group successfully drilled through Antarctic ice to reach the bed beneath the glacier at a depth of 2,800 meters, recovering a continuous climate record spanning at least 1.2 million years. This breakthrough sets a new record in ice core studies, surpassing the 800,000-year record previously achieved by the EPICA project in 2004.

The drilling, conducted in November 2024 as part of the fourth campaign of the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project, provides a unique window into the planet’s climatic past. The recovered ice layer preserves detailed information on atmospheric temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations over more than a million years.

This invaluable record will enable scientists to reconstruct Earth’s climatic history with precision and study key events such as the Pleistocene transition, which occurred between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago. During this period, glacial cycles increased in amplitude and shifted their frequency from 41,000 years to 100,000 years, a phenomenon that may be linked to variations in CO2 concentrations.

Ice Antarctica Record
One of the ice cores extracted. Credit: Beyond EPICA Project

Thanks to an advanced isotopic analysis system installed on-site, led by Amaëlle Landais from the CNRS, scientists were able to identify glacial and interglacial cycles in real time during the drilling process, confirming preliminary datings. Once transported to Europe, these ice cores will undergo more extensive analyses to obtain data on Earth’s atmospheric and climatic composition in the distant past. Furthermore, the deepest layers may contain even older information, though some records are likely to have been altered by geological processes.

The success of the Beyond EPICA project results from large-scale European collaboration. Coordinated by the CNRS and supported by the European Union and various national agencies, the project brought together experts from multiple disciplines and countries. In France, four CNRS laboratories played a crucial role in the mission’s development, along with the French Polar Institute.

The remote location of Little Dome C posed significant logistical challenges. Concordia Station, managed by France and Italy, served as the operations base, facilitating the transport of equipment and scientists through complex networks of airplanes, ships, and land convoys. This logistical effort, renewed annually since 2020, underscores the commitment of the nations involved to advancing scientific exploration of the planet’s most inhospitable continent.

The Beyond EPICA project not only answers fundamental questions about Earth’s climatic past but also lays the groundwork for future studies. Researchers hope to uncover information about Earth’s magnetic field, which underwent several reversals during the studied period, and to extract subglacial rocks that could reveal when the Antarctic continent was last ice-free.

Scheduled for completion in 2026, this project represents a technical and scientific achievement of epic proportions. Beyond its contribution to climate knowledge, Beyond EPICA highlights the power of international cooperation and technological innovation in the pursuit of answers about the origins and future of our planet.

SOURCES

Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)

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