What is hidden under the ice of the South Pole?

During the summer season at the South Pole, scientists immediately made several attempts to study what lies beneath the ice. Acoustic, seismic methods of study were used , and the atmosphere was also studied. This year, experts received a more or less detailed idea of ​​what the ice hides.

The image below shows the terrain, “solid ground”, so to speak. On top - more than 3 kilometers of ice. It is worth noting that the scaling of the X and Y axis is different.

The process of “freezing” the South Pole dragged on for many tens of thousands of years. Over the years, the snow that fell here shrank and turned into layers of ice. The process, quite a long one, led to an increase in the layer of ice. Now, as mentioned above, the ice layer in many places of the South Pole is more than 3 kilometers.

At the same time, scientists were able to obtain an image of individual ice layers, which are a kind of “annual” rings, which can be used to judge a lot, not only the age of the ice cover. For example, each of the layers is unique in composition. And according to the characteristics of each layer, one can judge the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere in different periods. The timeline of the reference is from the beginning of the freezing of the South Pole to the current moment.


When you click on the picture, the original image (3.5 MB) opens.

By the way, the radar data displayed on the image was obtained quite a long time ago - back in 1998, by specialists from UTIG ( University of Texas Institute for Geophysics ).

The same data are now used by scientists who decided to conduct deep drilling of the ice at the South Pole. The goal is a 1.5 km deep well and ice samples for analysis. 1.5 kilometers is about 40 thousand years. Analysis of ice samples will help to create a detailed picture of climate and environmental change over this period.