This discovery prompted further investigations into the age of the plants and the sediment, revealing that the area was ice-free approximately 400,000 years ago.ĭating the Sediment To determine the age of the ice-free period, scientists used luminescence dating, a technique based on the accumulation of free electrons in minerals exposed to environmental radiation.

The top layer of the sample was found to contain plant matter, suggesting that the area had not always been covered in ice. A team of international collaborators, led by geoscientists from the University of Vermont, began studying the sediment and made a surprising discovery. While the ice core has been studied extensively over the decades, the sediment was not given much attention until it was found in a freezer in Denmark in 2017. The Rediscovery of the Sediment The frozen sediment collected more than 50 years ago was the first deep ice core ever obtained by scientists. A recent study of this rediscovered frozen sample has shed new light on Greenland’s past and raised concerns about its future vulnerability to a warming climate. However, the sediment remained largely overlooked until it was rediscovered in 2017.

In 1966, scientists drilled deep into the Greenland ice sheet and collected a significant ice core, along with frozen sediment from beneath it. Greenland’s ice sheet has long been a topic of intense scientific study, providing critical insights into our planet’s climate history.

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