Scientists have discovered the longest continuous ice core record of past climate – estimated at more than 1.2 million years old.

From a remote site in Antarctica, an international research team including Dr. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen from UM, has achieved a historic milestone. The scientists successfully drilled a 2,800-meter-long ice core, reaching bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet and uncovering the oldest ice core ever retrieved.

This breakthrough offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore Earth’s climate and atmospheric history, including the relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases during the most distant periods of the ice age.