A team of 22 scientists from the Oregon State University-led Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, or COLDEX, is headed to Antarctica for the first field season in its pursuit of the Earth’s oldest ice and the climate records preserved in it.
A team of 22 scientists from the Oregon State University-led Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, or COLDEX, is headed to Antarctica for the first field season in its pursuit of the Earth’s oldest ice and the climate records preserved in it.
COLDEX is a National Science Foundation-funded Science and Technology Center formed in 2021 and funded through a five-year $25 million grant. The project’s goal is to find, collect and analyze some of the planet’s oldest ice, which provides an important record of Earth’s climate and environmental history and signals how the planet may respond to the current increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Antarctic ice – and the dust and tiny ancient air bubbles trapped inside – was buried over millions of years as snow fell and today provides scientists with important data about the atmospheric changes Earth has experienced. Scientists collect ice cores by drilling miles down from the continent’s surface.
Read more at: Oregon State University
Allan Hills tents during the 2019-20 field season. (Photo Credit: Jenna Epifanio, Oregon State University)
