PARIS: Scientists on Wednesday sealed ancient chunks of glacial ice in a first-of-its-kind sanctuary in Antarctica in the hope of preserving these fast-disappearing records of Earth’s past climate for centuries to come.
The two ice cores taken from Europe’s Alps are the first to be stored in a purpose-built snow cave on the frozen continent that one day should house an invaluable archive from across the globe.
Hosted at Concordia Station at 3,200 metres (10,500 feet) altitude in the heart of Antarctica, the ice sanctuary will protect the collection in natural cold storage at minus 52C without any need for refrigeration.
Ice cores shed precious light on climate conditions of millennia past, and these samples could help scientists of the future unlock their mysteries long after the glaciers themselves have melted away.
The sanctuary is really a cave, 35 metres long and five metres high and wide, dug roughly 10 metres below the surface into compact snow where freezing temperatures are constant.
In clear but freezing conditions at Concordia, roughly 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the coastline, scientists cut a blue ribbon as the final boxes containing core samples from Mont Blanc and Grand Combine were placed into the icy vault.
In the decades to come, scientists intend to stock the archive with glacial ice from alpine regions such as the Andes, Himalayas and Tajikistan.
Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2026