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Antarctic Ice Drilling Project Reaches Milestone
Paris - Jan 28, 2002 European scientists have reached the two-thirds mark in one of the most ambitious ice-core projects, a scheme to drill through more than three kilometers (two miles) of Antarctic ice sheet and strike bedrock. A 22-member team of scientists and drillers from the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) has reached exactly 2,002 metres (6,506 feet), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said. Battling plunging temperatures as the brief Antarctic summer draws to a close, they will finish this phase of the drilling by the end of January, then seal the hole and resume next summer to finish off, BAS spokeswoman Alison George told AFP by phone from Cambridge, England. "Eventually it (the hole) will go down 3.3 kilometers (2.06 miles), so they are literally two-thirds of the way through," George said. The drilling record in Antarctica stands at four kilometers (2.5 miles), a depth achieved last year when scientists reached Lake Vostok -- a mysterious subterranean body of freshwater that, it is hoped, may hold microscopic life that exists nowhere else on Earth. But this is the first time that an attempt has been made to pierce all the way through thick icesheet to reach bedrock, George said. The drilling is taking place at Dome Concordia, high on East Antarctica's plateau, and one of the most hostile places on Earth. Scientists have been working in temperatures of minus 20 degrees C (minus four F), BAS said. EPICA's aim is to analyse the content of carbon dioxide, methane and other chemicals in the ice, which will reveal patterns of snowfalls and ice formation over thousands of years and, hopefully, yield an insight into natural and man-made climate change. At the depth of 2,002 metres (6,506 ft), the ice came from snow that fell 170,000 years ago, when the region was an estimated 10 C (18 F) colder than it is today, BAS said. "The Antarctic ice sheet is like a history book of the Earth's climate," said BAS' Eric Wolff, currently EPICA's chief scientist. "Information about how climate worked in the past is locked in the ice. Understanding this helps predict future changes. It's fascinating to think that 170,000 years ago, the global sea level was 120 metres (390 feet) lower than now, and the temperature at the Equator was six C (10.8 F) colder." After on-site assessment, the cores will be sent to laboratories around Europe for a more detailed analysis. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Dirt, rocks and all the stuff we stand on firmly
Magnetic Reconnection Region Larger Than 2.5 Million Km Found In The Solar Wind
Paris (ESA) Jan 12, 2006Using the ESA Cluster spacecraft and the NASA Wind and ACE satellites, a team of American and European scientists have discovered the largest jets of particles created between the Earth and the Sun by magnetic reconnection. This result makes the cover of this week's issue of Nature. |
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