Ancient ice cores arrive at new U of A facility
'It’s only probably 20 years ago that people thought there was no such thing as life in ice'
A collection of ice samples drilled out of the depths of an Arctic ice cover has now arrived at a brand-new facility at the University of Alberta.
The ice cores, which have a total length of 1.5 kilometres, are an invaluable record of past climate conditions and microbial life forms, dating back 12,000 years or more.
After the cores were drilled in the Arctic, the ice samples were stored at a Natural Resources Canada site in Ottawa.
Changes there left the ice cores in need of a new home.
U of A glaciologist Martin Sharp wanted to bring the cores to Edmonton as soon as he heard the news.
The university created a $4-million facility to keep the ice safely frozen. The samples arrived in Edmonton this month after a 3,400-km journey across the country.
The ice cores will be used by different teams of researchers.
"It's only probably 20 years ago that people thought there was no such thing as life in ice," Sharp told CBC.
"And now we know that actually it's a habitat that's used quite widely by microbes."
He is particularly interested in the cores because large portions of the polar ice caps are melting.
Advancements in technology are allowing for more information than ever to be gleaned from the frozen cores, he said.