Scientists make incredible find in Antarctica: “This discovery has far exceeded our expectations”
The extracted ice block is six million years old, towards the end of the Miocene epoch, and can help to understand the planet’s climate history.
In a groundbreaking discovery, a team of scientists has extracted what is now considered the oldest known ice on Earth — a 6-million-year-old block recovered from the Allan Hills region of West Antarctica.
This ancient ice core, packed with microscopic air bubbles, offers a rare glimpse into Earth’s atmospheric conditions from a time long before humans walked the planet.
A clue to Earth’s climate six million years ago
The expedition, led by the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), revealed that global temperatures six million years ago were significantly warmer than today. Researchers believe this find could help predict how climate change may reshape our world in the decades ahead.
“Ice cores are like time machines, that let scientists take a look what our planet was like in the distant past,” said Sarah Shackleton of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and John Higgins of Princeton University. “The Allan Hills cores help us travel much further back than we imagined possible.”
To reach the ancient ice, researchers drilled roughly 650 feet (200 meters) into the Allan Hills — a relatively shallow depth compared to the 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) typically required to find similarly aged ice deeper within the continent.
What makes this core truly priceless are the tiny air bubbles trapped inside, preserving samples of Earth’s atmosphere from six million years ago.
Air quality
By analyzing isotopes of the noble gas argon within those bubbles, scientists can precisely date the ice and reconstruct past climate conditions.
“We knew the ice was old in this region. Initially, we had hoped to find ice up to 3 million years old, or maybe a little older, but this discovery has far exceeded our expectations,” says Ed Brook, a paleoclimatologist at OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.
As climate scientists race to understand Earth’s future, this ancient ice may hold the keys to unlocking its past — and guiding us toward a more informed tomorrow.
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