Source: Carbon News
Kiwi climate researchers are part of an ambitious mission to recover critical geological records to help forecast future sea-level rise. The first team members have embarked on a 1128 km journey across the Ross Ice Shelf to set up camp on the edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Photo: Anthony Powell / Antarctica New Zealand
Analyses will help to reveal how far the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated in the past — and what it might do in the future.
Scientists have just got their hands on a 228-metre (748-foot) core sample from the muddy bedrock beneath West Antarctica’s chunky ice sheets. Inside the record-breaking sample, they discovered fossils of marine organisms that date from a time when this area was an open, ice-free ocean.