One million years old ice! That is what the Japanese researchers claim to have dug up in the Antarctic Ocean. And according to them, this finding could give more clues than ever about climate and environmental changes. It is believed to be the oldest ice ever retrieved after an 800,000-year-old block was collected by European scientists in 2004. Headed by the National Institute of Polar Research, the Japanese mission drilled down more than 3,000 meters (about 10,000 feet) in the Antarctic Ocean to pull out the slab deep in the ice core.
“We need further analysis but the ice is expected to clarify things such as climate and environmental change or the evolution of microbes over the past million years,” said Yoshiyuki Fujii, director general at the polar institute. “Finding out the cycle and rhythm of climate change in the past will help to forecast the future,” he told AFP.
Via: Physorg