But how much history is being undone by the melting of these glaciers?
And how ancient is the ice?
This upends the long-held scientific belief and foreshadows a dark future when the ice is gone.
Nuuk, Greenland. (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is massive, albeit shrinking.
The ice in its thickest portions stretches down two miles till you hit rock.
Its ice and rock compositions have been studied.
The poppy seed fossils. (Photo:Halley Mastro/University of Vermont)
At the time, this conclusion was shocking and contentious.
But the recent study included an analysis of the glacial till contained within the core.
Paul Bierman of the University of Vermont and fellow researchers were curious about its contents.
Macrofossils from the 1993 core GISP2. (Photo: Fig. 2 inBierman et al.)
They found soil typical of a tundra, specifically containing fascinating, fossilized biological materials.
The team discovered willow wood, insect remnants, fungi, and incredibly preserved Arctic poppy seeds.
The latter was especially revealing.
And that’s unassailable.
You don’t have to rely on calculations or models.
The poppy seed fossils.
Macrofossils from the 1993 core GISP2.
(Photo: Fig.
2 inBierman et al.)
