Source: AWI
An international team has set up a remote camp on the ice 700 km from the nearest base (New Zealand’s Scott Base), to attempt to drill for mud and rocks holding critical insights about the fate of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in our warming world.
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.