Featured Image Credit: IFLScience/YouTube
A camera that was dropped hundreds of feet through a hole in the ice in Antarctica has made a remarkable discovery.
Beneath the continent's icy surface lie secrets, preserved in ice sheets that have been around for millions of years.
Unlike seasonal ice that melts and refreezes, some Antarctic ice sheets are hundreds of metres deep and have remained frozen for centuries.
In 2022, PhD student Austin Carter, who worked with the Center for Old Ice Exploration (COLDEX), dropped a camera in a 305-foot hole beneath Antarctica at the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area.
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He then posted the results on TikTok.
Carter let the camera fall all 93 metres to the bottom, giving us an impressive icy descent.
The video starts with Carter at ground level waving goodbye to the camera before it speeds down the small hole.
As the camera falls, it doesn't take long for things to lose their sense of scale, showing the different layers of ice that exist the further down it goes. The vertical icy tunnel almost started to look a bit otherworldly like a hyperspace bobsled ride.
Nonetheless, viewers admired the high-speed footage.
"Honestly this was really scary," one commenter openly admitted.
"Why do I feel claustrophobic lol,” another user asked.
“Bro imagine getting dropped in there,” someone else chimed in.
Another viewer was more curious about why all this was necessary: "Much respect, and pls take no offence, but why? Why spend time and money for a study on old ice?"
Well, the answer lies in what the ice can tell us.
COLDEX and similar research teams can learn a lot about our ancient history. As Carter put it, the study of the ice can help us understand 'the fundamental properties of our climate system.'
By analysing samples from different depths, researchers can study patterns of warming and cooling throughout history.
And hopefully, with this knowledge, scientists could better predict the effect of the ongoing climate crisis on our planet - including what it might do to those very same ice sheets.
To put it in perspective, some of the ice from the borehole Carter explored is an astonishing 2.7 million years old. That’s from a time long before humans walked the Earth, so it's truly from a time that's almost impossible to wrap your head around.
Interestingly, the hole itself was drilled some 20 years ago but has been reused ever since, becoming a small permanent fixture in the ice sheet.
