Ancient Ice

Imagine the Earth a million years ago. Was it warmer or colder? Was the air different? To find out, an international group of scientists took a peek back in time—not with a time machine, but with ancient ice.

Working on a project called Beyond EPICA, the scientists traveled to a field camp × field camp a base where scientific research can be conducted (noun) in Antarctica, a continent covered in ice. It’s the coldest place on Earth.

IN THE FIELD This aerial view shows the Beyond EPICA hub Little Dome C field base, in Antarctica.

Blast from the Past

The team’s goal was to study the oldest ice they could find. Scientists and support workers drilled deep into the ground, working only during the Antarctic summer, when the cold is less extreme. (They still worked in average temperatures of about -25°F.)

The work began in 2019 and took four summers. By January 2025, the team had drilled down about two miles and extracted a long cylinder of ice. Some sections of that ice core are more than a million years old. Even more exciting: The ice core is continuous × continuous without interruption (adjective) . It holds an unbroken record of the Earth’s atmosphere going back 1.2 million years.

Chiara Venier is a Beyond EPICA scientist. She told TFK the ice holds important clues to how Earth’s climate has changed over time. The clues could help “people and governments make smarter choices to protect our planet,” Venier says.

Dorothea Moser, of the British Antarctic Survey, is now studying the ice core. She told TFK that it’s full of history, including air bubbles with “direct samples of the air of the past.” The core is cut into segments representing different periods of time. Moser and others will melt the segments and study them to uncover their secrets.