The extraordinary nature of our planet is so obvious that sometimes we forget how truly extraordinary things exist on it. Such as the recently excavated traces of the Earth’s atmosphere from over a million years ago. Here’s how it was done.
This historic event took place on the least populated continent in the world, which is, of course, Antarctica. It was there that scientists extracted an ice core that conceals the history of our planet, dating back over a million years. It wasn’t easy, and this was only the beginning of the fun.
There is something to celebrate, the new record will go down in history
In the very unfavorable conditions of Antarctica, a team of scientists achieved a historic feat. They extracted an ice core from a depth of 2,800 meters, reaching all the way to the crust of the continent. All this to extract traces of our planet’s atmosphere from 1.2 million years ago. In this way, they beat the previous record, which looks pale compared to the latest achievement. Previous samples were “only” 800,000 years old.
As you can see, there is something to celebrate. You may ask yourself how ice can help us learn about such an old history of the planet? Well, the answer is simpler than it seems, and we often accidentally use this method in our own homes. Just like in the ice of a freezer, and in the ice from the South Pole, air bubbles are trapped. Its composition contains information about the state of the Earth from 1.2 million years ago.
“We have achieved a historic achievement for climate and environmental science,” said Carlo Barbante, scientist coordinating the ice extraction program under the banner Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice
Isn’t there an easier way to learn history?
The core extraction campaign started in 2019, so some time has passed, and the research base was located over 3,000 meters above sea level. In these conditions, it is not only terribly windy, but also the temperatures drop to -35 degrees Celsius. To put it mildly, these aren’t the easiest conditions, so couldn’t you just use fossils?
After all, fossils are also hundreds of thousands of years old and give us a lot of information about past eras. Why expose yourself to such difficult conditions? The difference lies in the quality of the samples, those extracted are contaminated by the passing years. The air trapped in the ice, in turn, is untainted by human influence (although it wouldn’t surprise me if microplastics were found even there) and the environment, so these are the purest samples that can be obtained. Plus, these are unique in that they may help solve the mystery of the drastic decline in the rate of successive ice ages.
This is not the end of difficult tasks
Unfortunately, success does not mean a break. The real victory will only be achieved when samples of the extracted ice reach the laboratory safely. Which of course won’t be that easy. For this purpose, special containers have been created in which ice cores will be placed, and then they will travel halfway around the world to Europe. During all this time, strict temperature regime will have to be maintained and the samples cannot be allowed to “detach”. For this reason, the temperature will be maintained as low as -50 degrees Celsius.
If the entire journey ends successfully, research will begin. Which, although very important and require delicacy, are no longer something particularly difficult or new for scientists. Ice has been studied for a long time, it provides information on the basis of which climate changes are illustrated. The samples will be placed in containers from which the air will be sucked out. Not a scrap of today’s atmosphere can remain inside. Then helium is injected and the suction cycle is repeated again. So that in the final phase the container contains only ice and a prehistoric atmosphere.
Source: mashable, popular science
Source: antyweb.pl
