At the end of this third reporting period (30 November 2024), the project is nearly halfway through its sixth year of operation, with four Antarctic field campaigns successfully completed and the fifth one just started, as well as the first processing campaign performed at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI).
During the first field season in Antarctica (November 2019 – January 2020), ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) and IPEV built the drill camp at the site previously identified by an EU funded geophysical survey project, including more than 4,000 km of airborne and ground-based Radar Echo Sounding (RES) survey and basal temperature assessment based on vertical velocity and temperature measurements.
During the second field season in Antarctica (November 2021 – January 2022), ENEA and IPEV completed the field camp installation and set up the drilling area, the international team started drilling, reaching a depth of 130 m, the temporary storage cave was completed, and a complex drilling system was installed, which was necessary to continue drilling activities during the following seasons.
During the third field season in Antarctica (November 2022 – January 2023), the international team completed the installation of the deep ice drilling system and fine-tuned it to continue the drilling operations started in the previous campaign. Drilling activities reached a depth of 808.47 metres. At this depth the ice preserves information about the climate and the atmosphere of the last 49,300 years.
This year, the first 217 metres from the Beyond EPICA ice core were also processed at the “Cold Lab” at Concordia Station, making observations on the cores and measuring its conductivity parameters, as well as performing the first cuts. A part of these ice cores is being transferred to Europe for analysis in European laboratories.
During the fourth field season in Antarctica (November 2023 - January 2024), in almost eight weeks of work, the international team reached a depth of 1836.18 meters: at this depth the ice preserves information about the climate and the atmosphere of the last 195.000 years. During this 23/24 drilling season, 1367 meters of the Beyond EPICA ice core were processed at the scientific trench installed at Little Dome C, making observations on the cores and measuring its conductivity parameters as well as performing the first cuts.
During summer 2024, the first processing campaign took place at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) (Bremerhaven, Germany) starting the processing of the first 1620 meters/samples of ice core coming from Antarctica.
The fifth field season in Antarctica (from November 2024) represents the fourth deep drilling campaign and a decisive campaign to reach 1.5 Million Year Old Ice. By the end of this reporting period, on 30th November 2024 (M66), drilling activities had already reached a depth of 2059.74 meters.
Since the beginning of the project, Scientific Consortia, have been working on ice core science. These are represented by groups of researchers, who work together to carry out analyses and to progress in the study of the ice core analysis. Fourteen consortia, including overall 200 researchers, have so far been identified and formed. The list is reported at the link
https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/about/science-consortia-sc/(opens in new window). These groups are platforms to exchange ideas, share expertise, research tools, ice samples, data and facilities, and to define key science goals for the future.
