U. researchers collect world's oldest ice core

A team of four University researchers and one member of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program traveled to Alan Hills, Antarctica as part of an expedition drill for the oldest ice core.

The team consisted of Assistant Professor of Geosciences John Higgins, Yuzhen Yan GS, research specialist Preston Kemeny ’15, postdoctoral researcher Sean Mackay and drill operator Mike Waszkiewicz of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program.

The purpose of the trip was to collect “old ice,” which constitutes ice that existed a million years ago, said Higgins, who led the trip. Higgins explained that compared to other formations such as rock or sand, ice provides geologists with an amazing window into the past because it is able to measure the composition of the atmosphere at different points in the past, based on bubbles that were formed by gaps between snow. As such, he said that analyzing the ice would allow the team to determine the composition of the atmosphere a million years ago.

Higgins noted that he spent two field seasons in the same Alan Hills area of Antarctica in 2009-2011 trying to look for old ice in the area.

According to Higgins, the team was in Antarctica from Nov. 20 to Jan. 16, spending two weeks coordinating logistics and being trained on fieldwork and survival skills at the U.S. government’s McMurdo Station.

Through their expedition, sediments found in the deep sea have suggested that more than 800,000 years ago, the Earth’s climate had been a lot warmer, Higgins explained.

“We think that they were related probably to greenhouse gases but nobody has demonstrated yet that with measurements particularly from ice cores,” he added.

Kemeny added that the ice they were looking for was also of interest because for the last 800,000 years there has been a glacial cycle every 100,000 years. However, prior to this time period, the periodicity of ice ages was closer to every 40,000 years. Therefore, according to Higgins, understanding this transition may help us to understand what environmental feedbacks move the Earth between different climates.

A previous project by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, which operated from 1996-2006, had collected and documented ice cores 800,000 years old, but not older than that, Higgins noted.

Yan noted that this expedition was quite revolutionary in the field of geology as it was the first of its kind to succeed in collecting old ice. He said that the team was able to achieve this through unconventional means.

In traditional research, the method has been to drill straight down from a glacier, a process that would require 10-15 years, tens and millions of dollars, a large international effort with many scientists and drilling into ice three kilometers thick, Higgins explained.

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He noted that by drilling close to the remote Alan Hill mountain range, they were able to collect deep ice outcrops that had been surfaced by the obstruction of the mountain. As such, Higgins said that their expedition only required five team members, drilling a core 200 meters and a funding of $700,000, withholding the logistical cost.

Yan noted that the National Science Foundation donated the funding for this expedition.

The team collected 330 meters and 4.5 tons of ice in total, Higgins said. He added that the cores just arrived in Los Angeles and will be put in a refrigeration unit to be driven up to Colorado, where they will be placed in the national ice core laboratory until the team visits it in May. He said that they hope to have some form of research completed by the summer.

“Antarctica is terrifically beautiful and an extremely harsh place to live. I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to see a place so untouched by the humanity, especially in the interest of learning more about Earth’s climate,” Kemeny said.