Not long ago, the United Kingdom welcomed carrots from the depths of Antarctica. Dating around 1.5 million years, the latter will be melted and then studied to find out more about the current global warming.
Release certain elements of the ice
The British national operator in Antarctica – British Antarctic Survey (BAS) – recently received ice samples dating from at least 1.5 million years. More specifically, it was at the origin of a Unique carrot with a length of 2,800 meters. Cut into sections of one meter, it arrived by boat in Cambridge, before storage in the cold room at the bottom where a temperature of -23 ° C reigns.
As the BBC indicates in a report published on July 18, 2025, researchers worked in eastern Antarctic for four years to ensure drilling. According to the researchers, the seniority of this ice could
revolutionize knowledge relating to climate change. Indeed, this period in the history of the earth is still completely unknown.
For almost seven weeks, lower scientists will slowly melt the ice, which will allow release volcanic ash, old dust But also, diatoms, namely small seaweed selected prisoners since the transformation of water into ice. Researchers will use a SPMass Ecrometer with inductive coupling plasma (ICPMS) in order to measure more than twenty elements and others of traces of metals. However, these materials could deliver information on marine currents as well as the sea level and temperature of the time.
Credit: ISTOCK
Credits: LANM35 / ISTOCK
A mysterious period ultimately understood?
This work will give the opportunity to confirm the existence of a very special period, dating from around 800,000 years. In these times, the concentrations of planetary carbon dioxide (CO2) were naturally higher and perhaps even more than today. It is particularly question of Better understanding the transition of the average pleistocenea transition that occurred between 800,000 and 1.2 million years ago, synonymous with sudden change in the Earth’s glacial cycles. This alternation between the hot and glacial periods appeared every 41,000 years approximately, before this same cycle was finally renewed every 100,000 years. However, the cause of this change Still there is a real mystery.
For researchers, in addition to understanding certain unknown periods, these works could above all help
apprehend the future of the earth in the face of climate change. In addition, remember that it is important to go back very far in time in order to understand the different shift points, insofar as the earth’s climate system has experienced a lot of upheavals through the ages.