Vanishing Alpine glacier reveals 2,000 years of fires, mining and eruptions
Researchers extracted a 33-foot ice core from an Alpine glacier to analyze 2,000 years of environmental history. The core provides a detailed record of ancient volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and human metal smelting activities.
Why it matters
This study offers a rare baseline for understanding pre-industrial atmospheric conditions and the long-term impact of human activity on the environment.
Scientists drilled 33 feet into ice and recovered a 2,000-year climate record, a frozen capsule that can reveal how the atmosphere breathed long before modern measurements.High on the Weißseespitze glacier in the eastern Alps, an international research team extracted an ice core barely 33 feet long that preserves two centuries of European environmental history.Published in the official study in Frontiers in Earth Science, the research details a timeline stretching from the Roman era around the year 128 through to 1641.
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