On 1 June 2019 the European Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Core project started with the aim of drilling for and recovering ice from up to 1.5 Million years ago in Antarctica. The previous EPICA project recovered ice from 800,000 years ago. Now scientists want to go BEYOND that.
![[Translate to English:] AWI polar aircraft Polar 6 with pilot at “Oldest Ice Reconnaissance” field camp in Dronning Maud Land](/fileadmin/_processed_/9/9/csm_Alexander-Weinhart_AWI_Polar6-with-pilot_959c49450d.jpg "Polar 6 with pilot")
![Temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) data from sediment and ice cores depicting the last 1.5 million years before present as well as glacial-interglacial cycles. Temperature from proxy data of marine sediments (dark blue and red) relative to global temperature [°C] in the year 1950; carbon dioxide content [ppmv] from ice cores (light blue) and proxy data of marine sediments (black and grey).](/fileadmin/_processed_/1/a/csm_BE-OI_INFOGRAFIK_300dpi_ad472e78fb.jpg "Infographic CO2 and Temperature in the Past")
![[Translate to English:] One of the first pieces of shallow ice-core drilled by the new system in the backround. Close to Gwerman Antarctic Neumayer Station III](/fileadmin/_processed_/f/c/csm_Jan-Tell_AWI_Ice-core-sample_5297afd75f.jpg "Ice Core Drilling")
The hope is that this core will provide information on the greenhouse gases present during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which occurred between 900,000 and 1.2 Million years ago. During this period the climatic periodicity transitioned from 41,000 to 100,000 years between ice ages. Why this change happened is the mystery to be resolved.
To do this, experts from 10 European Countries and 16 different research institutions have joined forces under the guidance of Carlo Barbante and his management team at the CNR and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy, funded by the European Horizon 2020-research programme.
The drilling site, at Little Dome C, was previously identified by an EU funded geophysical survey project, led by Olaf Eisen from the Alfred Wegner Institute in Germany. Luckily it is only 40km from Concordia Station, the Italian French base on the high Antarctic Plateau at Dome C, over 1000 km from the coast and at an altitude of 3233 m above sea level, run by IPEV and the PNRA, the French and Italian polar agencies. Here on a balmy summers day the temperatures reach a maximum of -25°C, whilst in the deep mid-winter they drop to under -80°C. It may seem absurd whilst sitting on 3 km of water, but Dome C is as dry as the Sahara Desert, so snow accumulates slowly, gradually trapping in the ice the precious air bubbles we hope to analyse to find the atmospheric composition of the deep past of our planet. Careful analysis of the isotopic ratios of this ancient ice will be our deep time thermometer.
In the words of Barbara Stenni of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice “we hope to study the climate of the past to improve our models of future climate change.”
The whole project will cost around 11 million € and will take 6 years in total to drill, collect and analyse the ice from this very deep hole if everything goes to plan. Around ten people are going to start working on the camp construction and the drilling itself as well as other scientific studies during the upcoming Antarctic season 2019/20.
For further information visit https://www.beyondepica.eu/