6-million-year-old ice discovered in Antarctica

Scientists have pulled a 6-million-year-old chunk of ice out of Antarctica, the oldest directly dated ice ever found, and it’s helping them reconstruct Earth’s ancient climate.

- PATRICK PESTER

The record-breaking ice, along with the air bubbles trapped inside, is more than double the age of the previously oldest-known ice samples, which are around 2.7 million years old, according to a new study.

"Ice cores are like time machines that let scientists take a look at what our planet was like in the past," said Sarah Shackleton, an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "The Allan Hills cores help us travel much further back than we imagined possible."