Climate History Rewritten: Arctic Ice an Early Arrival
For the first time, scientists have pulled up prehistoric geologic records from the frigid vault of the Arctic Ocean. A sediment core, more than 1,400 feet long, reveals that that glaciers formed in the Arctic Ocean about 14 million years earlier than geologists thought.
For the first time, scientists have pulled up prehistoric geologic records from the frigid vault of the Arctic Ocean. One of the findings, evidence of glacial Arctic ice from 45 million years ago, recasts a critical chapter of global climate history.
The evidence, pea-sized pebbles locked inside a nearly 1,411 foot-long sediment core, shows that glaciers formed in the Arctic Ocean about 14 million years earlier than geologists thought. This means that the immense sheets of ice at the Earth's poles formed simultaneously, something researchers call “bipolar symmetry” in one of three reports on Artic ice highlighted on the cover of Nature.