Antarctic Researcher — Ice Core Sample
190.96 €
A glaciologist photographed on the Antarctic ice sheet holding an ice core sample — the backlit 800,000- year-old ice revealing its trapped air bubble record, the researcher’s red parka brilliant against the white-blue plateau.
Description
The Concordia Research Station, jointly operated by France and Italy at Dome C on the East Antarctic Plateau at 3,233 metres altitude, conducts ice core drilling that has extracted climate records extending 800,000 years into the past — the longest continuous climate archive on Earth. Ice cores contain trapped air bubbles that preserve samples of ancient atmosphere, allowing direct measurement of CO2, methane, and temperature proxies at every depth. This photograph was made during a field research season with full institutional access, at the moment when a freshly extracted core section was being examined in the open air — the backlight of the Antarctic sun passing through the core reveals the trapped bubble structure visible as cloudy irregularities within the otherwise crystalline ice. The -43°C ambient temperature required full polar ECW gear, and photography was managed with bare hands for a maximum of 45 seconds.
