Friday, March 30, 2007

Antarctic Climate Evolution research in Nature

At the start of the International Polar Year 2007-08, two news reports in Nature of March 7th highlighted Antarctic drilling activities. One article discusses the results of the Antarctic Drilling Program (ANDRILL), that penetrated more than 1200 m into the layers of the seabed, extracting a geological archive extending more than 5 millions years back in time. The second article is an account of the preparations for ice coring into the East Antarctic ice sheet at Dome Argus. The latter project aims to acquire a detailed climate record from annual layers of ice over the past 1.5 million years. More at http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070305/full/446110a.html

Photo: Sandra Passchier, courtesy NSF