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. The new project aims to go beyond that. The new core will provide 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 scientists want to resolve.
* This article was originally published here
