A New Zealand-led team has successfully drilled through 760 metres of Antarctic ice, and what they've found has come as a surprise.
The expedition's lead scientist says the ice cores extracted at Roosevelt Island in the Ross Sea will help them understand how the frozen continent will respond to global warming.
“We will be able to give a very detailed account of the climate history of west Antarctica and the Ross Sea region for each summer and winter for each year over the last 30 thousand years at least,” she says.
Cutting edge technology is needed. The scientists maintain a temperature of minus 20 degrees in the drill trench, and New Zealand engineers spent four years developing a new drill for the project.
Tim Naish of the Victoria University Antarctic Research Centre says the results were unexpected.
“The bedrock was not what we expected, it was actually a green mud and we got this boundary between the ice and the mud perfectly recorded,” he says.
The project has been 6 to 8 years in the planning, and could give crucial information about global warming, including how Antarctica will react to global warning.
100,000 samples will be taken from the core, and the first analysis should be available by August next year.
3 News
source: newshub archive
