SCIENTISTS will embark on the most ambitious Antarctic conservation mission in history this month to find the planet's oldest ice and unravel the mysteries of climate change.
A team of scientists, engineers and pilots from Britain, the US, Germany, Australia, China and Japan will join forces. They will spend two-and-a-half months battling the world's most extreme conditions at high altitudes, in temperatures as low as -
40C.
They will try to map 1.2 million-year-old ice in the sub-glacial Gamburtsev mountains – a range the size of the French Alps buried two miles under an ice sheet.
The British expedition leader, Dr Fausto Ferraccioli, said the buried ice should contain a "detailed record'' of climate change over the past millenniums.
Dr Ferraccioli, a geophysicist of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said: "This is an exciting and challenging project. It is a bit like preparing to go to Mars.
"Scientists from six countries are working together to do the unthinkable – to explore the deep interior of east Antarctica, one of the planet's last frontier regions.
"For two-and-a-half months, our teams will pool their resources and expertise to survey mountains the size of the Alps buried under the ice that currently defy any reasonable geological explanation.
"At the same time, we will hunt for ice that is more than 1.2 million years old. Locked in this ice is a detailed record of past climate change that will assist in making predictions for our future."
The Gamburtsev mountains are believed to be the birthplace of the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which now covers much of the continent.
Scientists on the International Polar Year project hope to discover how the mountains were formed, and suitable locations for future ice-core drilling.
Operating from two remote field camps, the teams will use state-of-the-art technologies, including ice-penetrating radar, two survey aircraft, gravimeters and magnetic sensors.
The teams aim to complete the first geophysical survey to map the mysterious landscape that lies beneath the ice sheet.
Professor Nicholas Owens, the director of the BAS, said: "In a changing world, with so much uncertainty about our future, it is crucial that we find answers to fundamental questions about our Earth.''
The International Polar Year 2007-8, which is running the mission, is the biggest co-ordinated international scientific effort for 50 years. It features more than 200 projects, involving 50,000 people from more than 60 countries.
FACT BOX• THE International Polar Year (IPY) is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009.
• IPY, organised through the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organisation, is actually the fourth polar year, following those in 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8.
• In order to have full and equal coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, IPY 2007-8 covers two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009.
• It will involve more than 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics.
The full article contains 536 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
