A team of brilliant scientists from University of Rochester were on an Antarctic expedition to study the climate of past times by using the sample of an 800,000-year-old ice core. Explaining the research, a representative from the team said, “We use ancient air trapped in glacial ice from Greenland and Antarctica to learn about how the concentrations and isotopic composition of greenhouse gases and reactive gases have varied in the past, and what these changes tell us about Earth’s climate and atmospheric chemistry”.
How to drill a shallow ice core:
(w/ @RochesterIceLab @heidiroop)1.Get funded by @NSF, go to Dry Valleys, #Antarctica ?? (hard part).
2.Get PICO coring auger (@US_IceDrilling).
3.Find 2 friends. Only need 1 but unsolicited advice from 2nd is great.
4.Remember a Hammer. ? pic.twitter.com/BEvFzvR2VC
— Peter Neff (@peter_neff) 7 February 2018
The team drilled a 90-m deep borehole and once the sampling was done, the scientists decided to have a little fun by exploring what would it sound like if ice chunks would be thrown into this deep bore. The chunks reached the bottom of the abyss after a good 5-10 seconds and the voice that came out was rather interesting. Check out this light-hearted video of the ice chunk sound followed by the team’s chuckles and fascination right here!
Antarctic ?? ice core drilling w/ @US_IceDrilling, @NSF_OPP allows us to 1) learn about Earth’s past climate, 2) make cool noises in deep ice boreholes. pic.twitter.com/FIeSHcOOA9
— Peter Neff (@peter_neff) 4 March 2018
Header Image Credits: University of Rochester Ice Core Expedition Blog
h/t: My Modern Met