A great success for Beyond EPICA third drilling campaign: reached 1836 meters of depth in the Antarctic ice sheet

The international research project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros and coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), aims to obtain data on the evolution of temperatures, the composition of the atmosphere and the carbon cycle, by going back in time 1.5 million years through analyzing an ice core extracted from the depths of the Antarctic ice sheet. By taking the legacy of last year's achievement, the complex deep ice drilling system worked days and nights, reaching a depth of 1836.18 meters by the end of this 23/24 campaign. In parallel with drilling activities, in the new processing trench at Little Dome C almost 1367 m of ice cores have been processed this season and sent to Mario Zucchelli Station to reach Europe

In Antarctica, the third drilling campaign of the Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) - Oldest Ice project, at the remote field site Little Dome C, has been successfully completed. The goal to go back 1.5 million years in time to reconstruct past temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations, through the analysis of an ice core extracted from the depths of the ice sheet, becomes each year more real.

Funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros and with significant financial contributions from participating nations, the project will last seven years (starting in 2019) and is coordinated by Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP) and a professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. For this project there are twelve research centers as partners, from ten European and non-European countries. For Italy, in addition to the CNR and Ca' Foscari University, there is the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), which is in charge together with the French Polar Institute (IPEV) of the logistics-related work module.

From the mid of November 2023 to the mid of January 2024, in almost eight weeks of work, the international team reached a depth of 1836.18 meters: at this depth the ice preserves information about the climate and the atmosphere of the last 195.000 years.

After a few days spent for the camp reopening operations, the team consisting of European scientists and technicians from 6 nations reunited in LDC and organized the work in two shifts, continuing the drilling operations for 16 hours a day without stopping. The ice core drill was provided by the Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Germany and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “The ice core drill produced consistent 4,5 m long ice cores and we drilled over 1000 m of high-quality ice cores in 6 weeks, reaching a final depth of 1836.18 m,” says Matthias Hüther, chief driller from the Alfred-Wegener-Institute. The project's final goal is to reach a depth of about 2,700 meters, which represents the thickness of the ice sheet underneath Little Dome C, a 10-square-kilometer area located at 3,233 meters above sea level, 34 kilometers from the French-Italian station Concordia, one of the most extreme places on Earth.

“This season was quite smooth: we had a slow set up at the beginning of the season, but then the team worked intensely and achieved amazing results, working tirelessly for two months at the Little Dome C camp. The processing also went really well: in just two months, the team was able to complete the processing operation on the ice cores extracted during last season and to catch up with this year's drilling depth,” says Carlo Barbante.

During this 23/24 drilling season, 1367 meters of the Beyond EPICA ice core were processed at the scientific trench installed at Little Dome C, making observations on the cores and measuring its conductivity parameters as well as performing the first cuts.

This season, some preliminary analyses have been carried out at Concordia Station: the determination of the hydrogen and oxygen isotope composition, made with a laser spectrometer on freshly extracted ice cores, allows the Beyond EPICA team to have some preliminary data to observe. “This in field analyses permit us to match the Beyond EPICA ice core records to the previous EPICA ice core drilled at Dome C. The obtained data are important to provide a preliminary dating of the ice cores so far extracted and to investigate the preservation of the climate signal,” says Amaelle Landais, research director at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

Soon, the boxes with the Beyond EPICA ice core samples will reach the European continent with the Laura Bassi icebreaker, equipped with two refrigerated containers which will ensure the best cold conditions, at -50°C, for the precious samples during the long journey across the hemispheres.

A precious ‘ice core’

The climate and the environmental history of our planet is archived in the ice, which can therefore reveal information from centuries and even hundreds of millennia ago on the evolution of temperature and on the composition of the atmosphere. Researchers will thus be able to assess the content of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere of the past. Then, they will be able to link these findings with the evolution of temperature. “We believe this ice core will give us information on the past's climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which happened between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago,” concludes Carlo Barbante. “During this transition, climate periodicity between ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years: the reason why this happened is the mystery we hope to solve.”

The activities of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project benefit from synergy with those carried out under the Italian PNRA, the National Program of Research in Antarctica, funded by the MUR and coordinated by the CNR for scientific activities, by ENEA for the operational implementation of the expeditions and by the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS) for the Laura Bassi icebreaker activities.

The 23/24 field season team:

Olivier Alemany (PI in the field) and Philippe Possenti from Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Rémi Dallmayr, Matthias Hüther (Chief Driller), Gunther Lawer, Johannes Lemburg from Alfred Wegener Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Andrea Ceinini and Saverio Panichi (Camp Manager) from ENEA, Ines Gay from IPEV, James Veale from British Antarctic Survey, Federico Scoto from CNR Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Fortunat Joos and Michaela Mühl from University of Bern, Tamara Gerber, Iben Koldtoft and Julien Westhoff (Chief Scientist) from University of Copenhagen.

To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice: linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce

Photos and videos: https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/gallery/field-seasons/202324/

In brief

What:conclusion of the third ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice

Further information:

Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, CNR-ISP director, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, e-mail: barbante@unive.it

Chiara Venier, Project Manager of the Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice project, CNR-ISP, e-mail: chiara.venier@cnr.it

Beyond EPICA returns to Antarctica: the third deep drilling season has just started

While the sun starts rising again in Antarctica, the Beyond EPICA 23/24 team has started the third drilling season in Little Dome C. Just a few kilometers away from Concordia Station, the remote camp of LDC will host researchers and technicians from Europe involved in the third ice core drilling campaign of the international research project Beyond EPICA, coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the CNR (National Research Council of Italy). By analyzing ice cores extracted from the deep ice in Antarctica, the project aims to obtain information dating back to 1.5 million years ago, regarding the evolution of temperature, the composition of the atmosphere, and the carbon cycle. A team of 16 people will work for two months in the middle of the Antarctic plateau, challenging extreme weather and time to reach the best results.

In the remote field camp of Little Dome C, Antarctica, just a few kilometers away from Concordia Station, an international team made up of 16 researchers and logistics personnel has started the third deep drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice. They will work for over two months on the Antarctic plateau at 3.200 meters above sea level, where the average summer temperature is -35°C. Over the next few years, the analysis of an ice core extracted from the surface to a depth of 2.7 km will enable the reconstruction of the world’s climate history going back in time 1.5 million years to reveal information on temperature and on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“This ice core will give us information on the climate of the past and on the greenhouse gasses that were in the atmosphere during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which happened between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago,” says Carlo Barbante, coordinator of the project, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP) and professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. “During this transition, climate periodicity between ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years: the reason why this happened is the mystery we hope to solve.”

The project has been funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros, is coordinated by the CNR Institute of Polar Sciences, and involves twelve European research institutes. In addition to the CNR and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) is in charge, together with the French Polar Institute (IPEV), of managing the logistics.

The activities of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project benefit from a synergy with the research conducted in the framework of the Italian Antarctic Research Programme (PNRA), which is funded by MUR, and coordinated by the CNR (scientific activities) and by ENEA (campaign management).

“In the previous campaign, despite the prohibitive weather conditions and some problems with the drilling equipment, the team worked really hard reaching the depth of 808 meters” says Barbante. “This year a laser spectrometer, operating at Concordia Station, will be used to analyze almost in real time the oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition of the freshly extracted ice brought from Little Dome C; this will allow to instantly detect the climate cycles, providing a preliminary dating of the core”.

Little Dome C is an area of 10 km2, located 35 km from the Italian-French Concordia Station — one of the most extreme places on the Earth — and the personnel involved in the drilling season will work there from mid-November 2023 to the end of January 2024.

Just like an ancient book, the Antarctica ice sheet has registered and conserved the environmental history of our planet. Researchers will be able to determine the content of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere of the past, linking these findings to how the temperature evolved and revealing information about the climate of the last 1.5 million years.

The Beyond EPICA project is now at the third drilling season and will continue till 2026: a European scientific and logistic effort based on cooperation and innovation.

The members of the 2023/2024 team:

Olivier Alemany and Philippe Possenti from Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Rémi Dallmayr, Matthias Hüther, Gunther Lawer, Johannes Lemburg from Alfred Wegener Institute, Saverio Panichi and Andrea Ceinini from ENEA, Ines Gay from IPEV, James Veale from British Antarctic Survey, Federico Scoto from CNR Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Michaela Mühl and Fortunat Joos from University of Bern, Julien Westhoff, Iben Koldtoft, Tamara Gerber from University of Copenhagen.

To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice: linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce

Photos:

Beyond EPICA Field Seasons Gallery:https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/gallery/field-seasons/

Videos: https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/outreach-communication/beyond-epica-on-youtube/

In brief

What:beginning of the third ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice

Further information:

Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, CNR-ISP director, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, e-mail: barbante@unive.it

Chiara Venier, Project Manager of the Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice project, CNR-ISP, e-mail: chiara.venier@cnr.it

1st February 2023 - Beyond EPICA: reached a depth of 808 meters in the Antarctic ice sheet

The second drilling campaign of Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice has been successfully completed. The international research project is funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros and coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the CNR. It aims to obtain data on the evolution of temperatures, the composition of the atmosphere and the carbon cycle, by going back in time 1.5 million years through analyzing an ice core extracted from the depths of the Antarctic ice sheet. The complex deep ice drilling system was installed quickly, kicking off drilling operations and reaching a depth of 808.47 meters by the end of this 22/23 campaign. At Concordia Station, a support team processed and cut the first 217 meters of the extracted ice core

In Antarctica, the second drilling campaign of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project, at the remote field site Little Dome C, has been successfully completed. This project is an unprecedented challenge for paleoclimatology studies and its goal is to go back 1.5 million years in time to reconstruct past temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations through the analysis of an ice core extracted from the depths of the ice sheet.

Funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros and significant financial contributions from participating nations, the project will last seven years (starting in 2019) and is coordinated by Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council (CNRISP) and a professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. For this project there are twelve research centers as partners, from ten European and non-European countries. For Italy, in addition to the CNR and Ca' Foscari University, there is the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), which is in charge together with the French Polar Institute (IPEV) of the logistics-related work module.
The activities of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project benefit from synergy with those carried out under the PNRA, the National Program of Research in Antarctica, funded by the MUR and coordinated by the CNR for scientific activities and by ENEA for the operational implementation of the expeditions.

From the end of November 2022 to the end of January 2023, in almost seven weeks of work, the international team reached a depth of 808.47 meters. At this depth the ice preserves information about the climate and the atmosphere of the last 49,300 years. Facing unforeseen setbacks and repairs to the drilling system and delays due to bad Antarctic weather conditions, the team worked hard for two months to nevertheless achieve this important intermediate result.

At first, the weather conditions at Little Dome C made field reopening operations difficult and delayed the team's arrival but organizing the work in two shifts proved successful to continue drilling operations for 16 hours a day without stopping. The project's final goal is to reach a depth of about 2,700 meters, which represents the thickness of the ice sheet underneath Little Dome C, a 10-squarekilometer area located at 3,233 meters above sea level, 34 kilometers from the French-Italian station Concordia, one of the most extreme places on Earth.

“This season has been intense but brought amazing results thanks to the team’s gigantic efforts: they worked tirelessly for two months at the Little Dome C camp. They first tested the equipment, and then progressed down to the remarkable depth of 808 meters and collected high quality ice cores. This will be the starting point for the next Beyond EPICA drilling season” said Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, Director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ISP) and Professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

As soon as the site was reached, the team's first goal was to complete the installation of the deep ice drilling system and fine-tune it to continue the drilling operations started in the previous campaign. The Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) drilling system was adapted to the ice conditions to achieve the best configuration for deep ice coring, using 3.5 m long drill barrels. The Danish drilling system has been used as a backup system to continue ice core extraction operations, while the engineers ironed out problems with the AWI drill.

In the last days of work, 4.5-m-long drill barrels were tested, and the result was unexpectedly successful: a single 4.52-m ice core was retrieved, the longest ever drilled as part of a European project. “This is a significant achievement for the AWI drill system: this is the longest core ever drilled by a European project. Its significance lies in the fact that at greater depths, where the time to winch down and up the borehole increases incrementally, being able to recover longer cores in each run means that we progress faster with the drilling, and should cut the time needed to reach bedrock, and the Oldest Ice" explained Rob Mulvaney, Chief Scientist for this Beyond EPICA drilling season and Professor at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), and Frank Wilhelms, Chief Driller for this Beyond EPICA season and Professor at AWI, in the 47th Situation Report sent from the Little Dome C field camp.

This year, the first 217 meters from the Beyond EPICA ice core were also processed at the Cold Lab at Concordia Station, making observations on the cores and measuring its conductivity parameters as well as performing the first cuts. A part of these ice cores will be transferred to Europe for analysis in European laboratories.

A precious ‘ice core’
The climate and the environmental history of our planet is archived in the ice, which can therefore reveal information from centuries and even hundreds of millennia ago on the evolution of temperature and on the composition of the atmosphere. Researchers will thus be able to assess the content of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere of the past. Then, they will be able to link these findings with the evolution of temperature. “We believe this ice core will give us information on the past's climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which happened between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago,” says Carlo Barbante. “During this transition, climate periodicity between ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years: the reason why this happened is the mystery we hope to solve.”

The 22/23 field season team
Here are the members of the 2022/2023 team: Frank Wilhelms, Matthias Hüther, Gunther Lawer, Martin Leonhardt and Johannes Lemburg from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (Germany), Robert Mulvaney from the British Antarctic Survey (UK), Julien Westhoff from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Romain Duphil from the University of Grenoble-Alpes (France), Romilly Harris Stuart from Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement and EU DEEPICE PhD candidate (France), Giuditta Celli PhD candidate at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and associated with the CNR – Institute of Polar Sciences, and Saverio Panichi, Michele Scalet and Andrea De Vito from ENEA — the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Italy). Markus Grimmer and Florian Krauss from the University of Bern (Switzerland) will provide support from the Concordia Station.

To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice: linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce

Photos and videos here


In brief

What: conclusion of the second ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice

Further information:

Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, CNR-ISP director, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, e-mail: barbante@unive.it

Chiara Venier, project manager of the Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice project, CNR-ISP, e-mail: chiara.venier@cnr.it

1st Dec 2022 - Beyond Epica deep drilling campaign begins in Antarctica

The Little Dome C site in Antarctica has reopened for the second ice core drilling campaign of the international research project coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the CNR (National Research Council of Italy). By analysing the ice cores extracted from the deep ice in Antarctica, the project aims to obtain information dating back to 1.5 million years ago, regarding the evolution of temperature, the composition of the atmosphere, and the carbon cycle. The team includes 15 people and aims to start deep drilling to reach depths of a few hundred metres

As summer in the southern hemisphere draws near, researchers are starting to work again at the remote Little Dome C site in Antarctica. An international team made up of 15 people will begin the deep drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice. They will work for over two months on the Antarctic plateau at 3.200 metres above sea level, where the average summer temperature is -35°C. Over the next few years, the analysis of an ice core extracted from a depth of 2.7 km will enable the reconstruction of the world’s climate history, going back in time by 1.5 million years to discover information on temperature and on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This project is fundamental for paleoclimatology studies.

The project has been funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros. It is coordinated by Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP) and professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The project involves twelve European and non-European international research institutes. On the Italian side, in addition to the CNR and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) is in charge, together with the French Polar Institute (IPEV), of managing the logistics.

The activities of the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice project benefit from a synergy with the research conducted in the framework of the Italian Antarctic Research Programme (PNRA), which is funded by MUR, and coordinated by the CNR (scientific activities) and by ENEA (campaign management).

Little Dome C is an area of 10 km2, located 35 km from the Italian-French Concordia Station — one of the most extreme places on the Earth. This year’s campaign will last until the end of January 2023.

“In the previous campaign, despite the prohibitive weather conditions, with gusts of wind and temperature almost always below -40°C, we set up a campsite that can host up to 15 people for a few months, as well as a complex drilling system,” says Carlo Barbante, who participated in the 2021/2022 campaign. “Our starting point will be 130 metres deep, which is the depth we reached last year. In this campaign we will conduct deep drilling. Our hope is to reach a depth of a few hundred metres by the end of January 2023.”

The climate and the environmental history of our planet is archived in the ice, which can therefore reveal information from hundreds of millennia ago on the evolution of temperature and the composition of the atmosphere. Researchers will be able to assess the content of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere of the past link these findings to how the temperature evolved.

“We believe this ice core will give us information on the climate of the past and on the greenhouse gasses that were in the atmosphere during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which happened between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago,” says Barbante. “During this transition, climate periodicity between ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years: the reason why this happened is the mystery we hope to solve.”

Here are the members of the 2022/2023 team: Frank Wilhelms, Matthias Hüther, Gunther Lawer, Martin Leonhardt and Johannes Lemburg from the Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany), Robert Mulvaney from the British Antarctic Survey (UK), Julien Westhoff from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Romain Duphil from the University of Grenoble-Alpes (France), Romilly Harris Stuart from Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement and DEEPICE PhD candidate (France), Giuditta Celli from CNR - Istituto di Scienze Polari and PhD candidate at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), Saverio Panichi, Michele Scalet and Andrea De Vito from ENEA — the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Italy). Markus Grimmer and Florian Krauss from the University of Bern (Switzerland) will provide support from the Concordia Station

To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice: linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce

Photos: https://bit.ly/beoi2022

Videos: https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/outreach-communication/beyond-epica-on-youtube/

In brief

What: starting of the second ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice

Further information:

Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, CNR-ISP director, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, e-mail: barbante@unive.it

Chiara Venier, project manager of the Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice project, CNR-ISP, e-mail: chiara.venier@cnr.it

17th Feb 2022 – Antarctica: working for 2 months at -40°C to complete the Little Dome C camp

The first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice has been successfully completed. This international research project was funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros, supported by significant financial and in-kind contributions from the participating nations, and is coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Cnr (National Research Council of Italy). The project aims to obtain information on the evolution of the temperatures, on the composition of the atmosphere and on the carbon cycle over the last 1.5 million years, by analysing a deep ice core extracted from the Antarctic ice sheet. During the 2021/22 campaign, the team completed the field camp installation, set up the drilling area reaching a depth of 130 metres, completed the temporary storage cave, and installed the complex drilling system, which is necessary to continue this unprecedented challenge during the next few seasons

At the remote Little Dome C site in Antarctica, the first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice has been successfully completed. The campaign is an unprecedented effort in paleoclimatology studies, as its purpose is to go back in time by 1.5 million years to reveal invaluable information on temperature and on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the past.

The project started in 2019 and will last seven years. It is funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros and supported by significant financial and in-kind contributions from the participating nations. It is coordinated by Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (Cnr-Isp) and professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The project involves twelve European and non-European international research institutes and will benefit from synergies with the French Polar Institute and the Italian National Antarctic Programme activities at the Italian-French Concordia Station.

From late November 2021 to the end of January 2022, the international team reached a depth of 130 metres, where the ice preserves information on the climate and atmosphere of approximately the last 3000 years. The first firn and ice cores of Beyond Epica are currently stored at the Italian-French Concordia Station on the eastern Antarctic plateau. During the next few years, these samples and the ones that will be collected during the next field campaigns will be transported to European laboratories. The target is to reach a depth of about 2,700 meters, the ice thickness at Little Dome C.

Little Dome C is an area of 10 km2 located 34 km from the Italian-French Concordia Station — one of the most extreme places on Earth. Glaciologists, engineers and technicians of the international team have worked at an altitude of 3,233 metres above sea level, over 1,000 km away from the coast, in one of the harshest places on the planet. Strong gusts of wind and a temperature almost always below -40°C, with lows of -52°C, made camp set-up even more challenging.

The main objectives completed by the Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice team, in fact, were the setting up of the camp, which can now host up to 15 people during the Antarctic summer, and the installation of a complex drilling system which is necessary to continue this unprecedented challenge during the next few seasons. The drilling tent now contains the control cabin, a tilting drilling tower for the maneuvering of the drilling system — which can extract ice cores up to 4.5-metre-long — and a laboratory for sampling preparation and storage. The drilling hole has been reamed and protected by a casing tube, two delicate operations that took several days to complete.

“We are very satisfied with the work done so far. Our next campaign will involve a final testing of the drilling system and then speedily proceeding to conduct deep drilling,” says Carlo Barbante, who is personally involved on the field in this campaign.

The climate and the environmental history of our planet is archived in the ice, which can therefore reveal information from centuries and even hundreds of millennia ago on the evolution of temperature and on the composition of the atmosphere. Researchers will thus be able to assess the content of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere of the past. Then, they will be able to link these findings with the evolution of temperature.

“We believe this ice core will give us information on the climate of the past and on the greenhouse gases that were in the atmosphere during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which happened between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago,” says Barbante. “During this transition, climate periodicity between ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years: the reason why this happened is the mystery we hope to solve.”

 

The other scientists on site were Thomas Stocker, Remo Walther, and Jakob Schwander from the University of Bern. The drillers were Philippe Possenti, Gregory Teste, Olivier Alemany, and Romain Duphil of the University of Grenoble-Alpes, and Matthias Hüther of the Alfred Wegener Institute. Logistics and telecommunications were managed by Michele Scalet, Saverio Panichi, Giacomo Bonanno and Calogero Monaco of Enea, while the electrification of the camp was managed by Olivier Delanoe and Anthony Pauty of the French Polar Institute (Ipev).

Photos : https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/gallery/


To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Core the field campaign 2021/22: www.beyondepica.eu/en/about/field-diary/field-campaign-202122/ and about the project in general: linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce.      

In brief

What: closing of the first ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice

Further information:

Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, Cnr-Isp director, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, e-mail: barbante@unive.it

Chiara Venier, project manager of the Beyond Epica-Oldest Ice project, Cnr-Isp, e-mail: chiara.venier@cnr.it

30th Nov 2021 – Press Release for the starting of the first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice

Antarctica: Beyond EPICA exploring the climate of the past

The first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice is starting at Little Dome C, in Antarctica. This international research project is funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros and it is coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the CNR (National Research Council of Italy). The project aims to obtain information on the evolution of the temperatures and on the composition of the atmosphere 1.5 million years ago, by analysing the ice cores that will be extracted from the deep ice in Antarctica. These data will be invaluable for predicting future climate trends and for implementing mitigation strategies

The first ice core drilling campaign of Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice is starting in Antarctica at the Little Dome C site. The aim of the project is to go back to 1.5 million years in time, by sampling and analysing the deep ice, which will reveal invaluable information on temperature and on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the past atmosphere. This project represents an unprecedented effort in paleoclimatology.

The project, which started in 2019, will last seven years and is funded by the European Commission with 11 million euros. It is coordinated by Carlo Barbante, director of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP) and professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The project involves twelve European and non-European international research institutes and will benefit from synergies with the French Polar Institute and the Italian National Antarctic Programme activities at the Italian-French Concordia Station. 

This campaign, which will last until January 2022, will be conducted at Little Dome C, an area of 10 km2, located 40 km from the Italian-French Concordia Station, on the east Antarctic plateau — one of the most extreme places on the Earth.

Glaciologists, engineers and technicians of the international team will work at an altitude of 3,233 metres above sea level, over 1,000 km away from the coast, and will experience average Antarctic summer temperatures of -35°C.

Once field camp installation is completed at Little Dome C, making the drilling site fully operational, the drilling system will be tested. While doing this, the team will also complete the construction of a temporary storage cave in the snow that will protect the first ice samples. The success of this campaign is crucial to the outcome of the entire project. There will be two decisive moments for the history of climate science: the first, will be drilling the pilot hole from which the ice core will be extracted; the second, will be the extraction of the first layers of ice by the end of this campaign. The team hopes to achieve an average coring rate of 170 m per week.

“During our previous EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) project, which ended in 2008, we managed to extract and analyse an 800,000-year-old ice core. Now we are trying to travel back further in time: because if we are to gain a correct perspective on what the world is currently experiencing with climate change, and adopt suitable mitigating strategies, we must look back even further — which is what we are trying to do in Antarctica with Beyond EPICA,” says Carlo Barbante, who is involved on site in the campaign.

The climate and the environmental history of our planet is archived in the ice: it can reveal information from centuries and even hundreds of millennia ago on the evolution of temperature and on the composition of the atmosphere.

Researchers will therefore be able to assess the content of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere of the past. Then, they will be able to link these findings with the evolution of temperature.

“We believe this ice core will give us information on the climate of the past and on the greenhouse gases that were in the atmosphere during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which happened between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago,” concludes Barbante. “During this transition, climate periodicity between ice ages changed from 41,000 to 100,000 years: the reason why this happened is the mystery we hope to solve.”

The other scientists on site will be Thomas Stocker, Remo Walther, and Jakob Schwander from the University of Bern. The drillers will be Philippe Possenti, Gregory Teste, Olivier Alemany, and Romain Duphil of the University of Grenoble-Alpes, and Matthias Hüther of the Alfred Wegener Institute. Logistics and telecommunications will be managed by Michele Scalet, Saverio Panichi, Giacomo Bonanno of Enea and Calogero Monaco of the Genio Guastatori regiment.

To learn more about Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Core: linktr.ee/BeyondEpica_OldestIce.      

Photos    

https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/gallery/

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls_inIwtAZI 

30 November 2021

In brief

What: Start of an ice core drilling campaign for the European project Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice

Further information: Carlo Barbante, Project Coordinator, CNR-ISP director, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, e-mail: barbante@unive.it, Chiara Venier, project manager of the Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice project, CNR-ISP, e-mail: chiara.venier@cnr.it

20th Dec 2019 - Press Release for the final site selection of the Beyond EPICA project

High-resolution geophysical survey confirms the deep Beyond EPICA ice-core drilling site

In the context of the European Union project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice Core: 1.5 Myr of greenhouse gas – climate feedback (Beyond EPICA), experts from 12 institutions in ten European countries coordinated by Prof. Carlo Barbante from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (ISP-CNR) in Venice, have finally confirmed the site for future ice core drilling operations in East Antarctica. This final step follows the previous EU project, led by Prof. Olaf Eisen from the Alfred Wegner Institute (AWI) in Germany. The drill site is located at Little Dome C (LDC), an area of about 10 km2, 40 km away from Concordia Station at Dome C, the Italian-French base on the high Antarctic Plateau. Dome C is 1000 km from the coast, at an altitude of 3233 m above sea level, and is run by IPEV and the PNRA, the French and Italian polar agencies.

On 1st June 2019 the Beyond EPICA project started with the aim of drilling for and recovering ice from up to 1.5 Million years ago in Antarctica. The previous EPICA project recovered 800,000 years old ice. We want to go BEYOND that. “We hope that this core will give us information on the Antarctic climate and the greenhouse gases present during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which occurred between 900,000 and 1.2 Million years ago”, says Carlo Barbante, coordinator of the project. “During this period the climatic periodicity transitioned from 41,000 to 100,000 years between ice ages. Why this change happened is the mystery we want to resolve.”

With this goal in mind, the LDC area was selected after an initial period of coordinated actions, including more than 4,000 km of airborne and ground-based Radar Echo Sounding (RES) survey and basal temperature assessment based on vertical velocity and temperature measurements. All measurements were interpreted within a temperature and age modelling framework. These actions were performed in the frame of the previous EU project, led by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE)  Over the last weeks, researchers from an international team composed of scientists from AWI, University of Copenhagen (UCPH) and the University of Alabama (UA) have finally scanned the area of interest and a group of experts precisely selected the exact site for drilling operations during the 2020-21 field season. Here, the characteristics of the deeper layers, with ice of least 1.5 million years old should be preserved with a good temporal resolution.

“It is the first time that a site for deep drilling has been selected with such a high precision and effort. The new radar measurement showed more clearly than before, that the ice there is well stratified and most probably very old”, says Olaf Eisen (AWI).

The whole project Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice Core has been funded with a 11 million € grant by the European Commission and will take 6 years in total to drill, collect and analyse the ice from this very deep hole, if everything goes to plan.

Contacts:

Prof. Carlo Barbante, Università Ca’Foscari Venezia (Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica) & ISP-CNR (phone: +39 041 2348942 barbante@unive.it).

Prof. Dr. Olaf Eisen, Alfred Wegner Institute (phone: +49 471 4831-1969, email: Olaf.Eisen@awi.de)

4th June 2019 - Press Release for the start of the project

The Epic search for oldest ice in Antarctica is starting

On 1st June 2019 the European Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Core project started with the aim of drilling for and recovering ice from up to 1.5 Million years ago in Antarctica. The previous EPICA project recovered ice from 800,000 years ago. We want to go BEYOND that. We hope that this core will give us information on the greenhouse gases present during the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT), which occurred between 900,000 and 1.2 Million years ago. During this period the climatic periodicity transitioned from 41,000 to 100,000 years between ice ages. Why this change happened is the mystery we want to resolve.

To do this, experts from 10 European Countries and 16 different Research Institutions have joined forces under the guidance of Carlo Barbante and his management team at the CNR and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy, funded by the European Horizon 2020-research programme.

The drilling site, at Little Dome C, was previously identified by an EU funded geophysical survey project, led by Olaf Eisen from the Alfred Wegner Institute in Germany. The drill site was presented during an EGU press conference in Vienna on 9th April 2019. Luckily it is only 40km from Concordia Station, the Italian-French base on the high Antarctic Plateau at Dome C, over 1000 km from the coast and at an altitude of 3233 m above sea level, run by IPEV and the PNRA, the French and Italian polar agencies. Here on a balmy summers day the temperatures reach a maximum of -25°C, whilst in the deep mid-winter they drop to under -80°C. It may seem absurd whilst sitting on 3 km of water, but Dome C is as dry as the Sahara Desert, so snow accumulates slowly, gradually trapping in the ice the precious air bubbles we hope to analyse to find the atmospheric composition of the deep past of our planet. Careful analysis of the isotopic ratios of this ancient ice will be our deep time thermometer.

In the words of Barbara Stenni of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice “we hope to study the climate of the past to improve our models of future climate change.”

The whole project will cost around 11 million € and will take 6 years in total to drill, collect and analyse the ice from this very deep hole if everything goes to plan.

For photos, graphics and videos: www.egu.eu/gamedia/2019/documents/

(EGU press Conference in Vienna, 9th April 2019: under PC2: Beyond EPICA: The quest for a 1.5 million year ice core)

9th April 2019 - BE-OI press conference at EGU 2019

Ideal location for drilling oldest ice core found

Beyond EPICA presented the decision where to drill for 1.5 million year old ice at:

EGU Press Conference
Tuesday, 9 April, 09:00
Beyond EPICA: The quest for a 1.5 Million year ice core

Press release, presentation, images and video material available here