Australia Plans To Drill 2,000-Year-Old Ice Core In Antarctica

An anonymous reader writes "Australia announced Saturday a new project to drill a deep ice core in Antarctica, which may shed light on past climatic conditions in the continent. The project, Aurora Basin North project, will involve researchers drilling a 2,000-year-old ice core, in order to search for the scientific 'holy grail' of the ice core."

Comments

Oil

[jamesh]

I hope we find some oil there too. By accident of course.

Re:Oil

[dbIII]

Bit tricky in the ice around 1km above a mountain range :)

Cores

[symbolset]

In the Beaufort Sea just north of Canada's Yukon there's a spot that has been covered in ice in the winter and exposed to the sun in the summer, for a billion years - give or take some ice ages - back to when the substrate was actually near the equator. And the sediment there on the sea floor has more to tell us about our climate, global insolation and biological action than these antarctic cores do. Worse still, oil drillers are actively drilling in this area and willing to give up the cores for free as they are an unavoidable byproduct of their operations. Why are we not hearing about the research into these arctic sediment cores?

Re:Cores

[dargaud]

There's plenty of papers about them, but they give different scopes. Usually Antarctic cores are more precise and less sensitive to random fluctuations. They also measure more things (temperature, humidity, direct CO2 levels...). In the case of TFA, a 40m core is less than impressive if you compare it to 4km long cores from Vostok or Concordia, but the gist of the article is that it will be very precise for each year.

Re:Cores

[Rogerborg]

Glacial period, not ice age. We're in an ice age. We're due for a glacial period. Would you prefer that to warming?

Re:Cores

[dargaud]

Huh... What does a seafood restaurant has to do with Antarctica ?

Re:Cores

[symbolset]

Believe it or not, oil drillers are even more interested in scientific findings about their cores than most of us are.

Re:Cores

[symbolset]

Maybe you were thinking religion. That is definitely how religion works.

Re:Cores

[symbolset]

Cores are physical scientific evidence, or they are not. Exxon can't sprinkle some magic powder on their cores that makes the data come out some way they want - and that would defeat the purpose for them of learning what was truly in the cores. They need that information.

Re:Cores

[Runaway1956]

*sigh*

I don't know how you can miss the cynicism, and the explanation for the cynicism that I've posted above.

One more time:

WE ARE ALREADY BEING ASSURED OF THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF THE DATA TO BE OBTAINED FROM THIS ICE CORE, BEFORE THE EQUIPMENT IS EVEN SET UP!

A more appropriate claim would be, "We hope that an ice core from this area will give us more detailed information than previous ice cores have given us. We expect that changes in climate will be documented more clearly in the thicker layers of ice that we hope to find."

Please, go back, and read everything I've written. My own message isn't buried layers deep in ice. Just open your eyes and read it.

Re:Cores

[dargaud]

Sorry but I don't. I was there during the aforementioned Epica beginning and end, but I'm no glaciologist so that's pretty much the limit of my knowledge. Anyway good datation crosses the different methods AND different geographical origins: dendrochronology, ice cores, lake cores, deep ocean cores, historical archive (wine production, solar spots...), historical artifacts (sealed glass bottles)...

Re:Ah, I'm not sure what's so Earth shattering

[riverat1]

Greenland ice cores only go back 100,000 years or so. The oldest ice cores that I'm aware of are around 800,000 years from Antarctica. The attraction of this new site is apparently the snowfall is greater in this area than in most of Antarctica and so the layers in the ice core will be thicker allowing more precision in the measurements. They're saying this is preliminary research that could eventually lead to million year old ice cores.

2,000 years old... Holy grail...

[White Flame]

This is a cover up for some sort of religious artifact expedition!

It belongs in a museum!

Re:reply

[arisvega]

What is the purpose of the study ice cores? Is this to the exploitation of resources?

Gases can get 'diluted' into liquids, almost the same way solids (e.g. sugar, salt) do. The assumption is that gases get 'locked' into the ice (along with other stuff) so one can drill a core, keep it as frozen and pristine (avoid contamination) as possible during transport, get it to the lab, and perform precision measurements of what one is looking for.

The core is thought to 'record' the atmospheric history, because the levels of certain gases at various parts of the core reflect the atmospheric abundances of this and that gas, at the time that particular part of the core was frozen (created). So, in principle, a '2000-year' core is a core obtained by drilling to a depth that was the surface of the snow/ice 2000 years ago. Therefore by vaporizing parts of the core and taking precise measurements (say with a mass spectrometer) can give clues to the dominant atmospheric conditions of that age. Other frozen material can come as a bonus.

The above are just basic principles, as I understand them, and I am certain the actual measurements and processing is far from trivial. But I am not an expert on this field, I only know a few people that are; perhaps someone that is an expert can consider contributing some more information.

Re:Obligatory

[Sabathius]

I love a good "The Thing" reference! Right on, man. MacReady: [about to test his blood (core? heh heh)] "Now I'm gonna show you what I already know."