430,000 years ago a meteor exploded over Antarctica, leaving clues in the debris nationalgeographic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalgeographic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Antarctic scientists are close to finalising a drilling location deep in the frozen continent’s interior that could reveal a continuous record of the Earth’s climate going back 1.5 million years. After almost a decade of work, scientists at the Australian Antarctic Division are close to pinpointing a place to drill an ice core almost 3,000-metres deep. A successful mission would give scientists a reliable record of the Earth’s ancient climate.
Ice cores have been a key tool for the worldâs climate scientists to understand what has happened to the Earthâs climate in the past and what could happen in the future as greenhouse gas levels from fossil fuel burning continue to rise.
The area around Little Dome C is about 40 kilometres away from Dome C â also known as Dome Concordia â which is the site of the longest continuous ice core record so far, going back about 800,000 years.
A Europe-backed effort that has worked closely with the Australian team has already pinpointed a drill site in the same Little Dome C region.