Center for Oldest Ice Exploration

The Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) is a collaborative and interdisciplinary research group that aims to find the oldest ice on Earth. Ancient ice can be used to reconstruct past climate and provide valuable insights into climate dynamics. Of particular interest are time periods that were warmer than today, such as the Pliocene, to better understand how Earth behaves when temperatures are higher. Ice cores are a valuable climate archive in that they contain the only direct measurements for greenhouse gases of the past and also provide insight into other climate dynamics such as mean ocean temperature, Antarctica temperature, global aridity, and much more. Teams of geophysicists work to identify potential sites of old ice, and geochemists work to unveil the climate of the past held within the ice cores. To date, we have uncovered ice over 6 million years old, and we are continuously working to retrieve older ice to uncover deeper insights into Earth’s past to better inform our future.