Researchers discovered it on a remote island in the Canadian Arctic. ancient glacier ruins That may have been over a million years ago. Researchers say the discovery may be the oldest glacier ever discovered, buried in Arctic permafrost (ground that has been frozen for at least two years in a row). This was reported in a paper published on January 1st. geology. The clock is ticking for researchers dedicated to studying glaciers, as human-induced climate change puts long-preserved ice at risk of melting.
Like notes on a logbook page, the gas bubbles, compounds, and particles trapped in the ice layers of glaciers provide information about the atmosphere and climate over the past millennia. However, there are few reports of such ice older than the ice sheet’s last major expansion between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. The newly discovered ice could therefore provide researchers with a rare opportunity to study the climate during the early Pleistocene, when the Earth experienced intermittent ice ages interspersed with warmer periods known as interglacials. There is. “these [Pleistocene climate shifts] Daniel Fortier, a geomorphologist at the University of Montreal, says:
In 2009, Fortier and his colleagues were studying buried fossilized forest on Bylot Island in Nunavut, Canada, when they stumbled upon the site of a recent landslide caused by thawing permafrost. The slide exposed a translucent layer of ice that was buried several meters underground, just above the petrified forest. To Fortier’s surprise, radiocarbon dating of the organic matter in the ice showed it to be more than 60,000 years old. “I wasn’t expecting that at all,” he says.
Additionally, the researchers found a reversal in the arrangement of magnetic minerals in the sediment layer on top of the ice that corresponds to a reversal in Earth’s magnetic field about 770,000 years ago, indicating that the ice is at least that old. Ta. Previous studies have also estimated that the fossil forest containing the glacier is approximately 2.8 to 2.4 million years old, representing the maximum possible age of the ice.
The discovery is evidence of permafrost’s resilience, Fortier said. Although climate projections suggest that permafrost will completely thaw in many regions by the end of the century, he points out that these preserved glaciers have persisted through warmer interglacial periods than today. “I don’t think permafrost will disappear that quickly. This system is more resilient than we think.”
