The fifth and final drilling campaign of the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project has just begun in Antarctica. At the remote field site of Little Dome C, 3,200 metres above sea level and with temperatures around –35°C, an international team of 15 scientists and logistics experts is engaged in drilling through the bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet and retrieving duplicate ice samples collected during the previous season. These samples contain information on past climate conditions going back more than 1.2 million years. The project, led by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), is one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings in the field of palaeoclimatology
The fifth and final drilling campaign of Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice, which involves twelve research institutions from ten European countries, has begun in Antarctica. Coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP), the international team includes 15 scientists and logistics personnel working at the Little Dome C field site, situated 35 kilometres from Concordia Station and at 3,200 metres above sea level. Over two months, during the Antarctic summer – when average temperatures hover around –35°C – the team will focus on two main objectives.
On the one hand, they aim to drill through the rocky bed beneath the ice sheet to determine when it was last exposed to sunlight — a key piece of data for establishing the age of the ice sheet. On the other hand, they will focus on extracting new ice samples, drilling a duplicate ice core, from the deepest section of the borehole, between 2,350 and 2,590 metres, to obtain sufficient material for analysis relating to the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), a crucial period for understanding the evolution of Earth’s climate.
“The objectives of this campaign present unprecedented technological and engineering challenges in Antarctic glaciology,” explains Carlo Barbante from Little Dome C, Professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, senior associate member of CNR-ISP and Coordinator of Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice. “We face these challenges bolstered by the success of previous campaigns, which achieved the planned goal of reaching the bedrock beneath the ice sheet, and by the exceptional quality of our international team of researchers and technical staff.”
While drilling operations continue on the White Continent, partner research institutions in Europe have begun the initial analyses of ice samples that arrived last spring. After splitting the core jointly at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven (DE), a scientific party from the partner institutions has successfully completed the chemical analysis of 190 metres of ice from the deepest section of the 2,800-metre-long core at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge (UK). The BAS team, which includes experts from several European research centres, has confirmed that the core offers a complete record of past climate and atmospheric composition, dating back at least 1.2 million years: the oldest continuous ice core record ever retrieved. Further analyses will continue at BAS and other partner laboratories, including the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the University of Milano-Bicocca, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), the University of Bern, the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), the University of Bergen, and the University of Copenhagen, to uncover new insights into the evolution of Earth’s climate and greenhouse gas concentrations trapped within the ice.
The Beyond EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) – Oldest Ice project is funded by the European Commission and supported by national partners and funding agencies in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In addition to the CNR and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) is responsible, together with the French Polar Institute (IPEV), for logistics management.
Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice also collaborated with research conducted under the Italian National Antarctic Research Programme (PNRA), funded by the Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR). The programme is overseen scientifically by the CNR, with ENEA responsible for logistics and base operations, and the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) managing the technical and scientific aspects of the Laura Bassi icebreaker.
Participants in the 2025/2026 Campaign:
Barbara Seth (University of Bern-CH); Henrique Traeger (University of Bern-CH); Matthias Hüther (Awi-DE); Johannes Lemburg (Awi-DE); Gunther Lawer (Awi-DE); Katrin Ederer (Awi-DE); Mohammad Vafadarmianvelayat (Awi-DE); Iben Koldtoft (University of Copenhagen, DK). Marion Lahuec (Ipev, FR); Philippe Possenti (Cnrs-FR); Gianluca Bianchi Fasani (ENEA, IT); Vincenzo Genovese (ENEA, IT), Sergio Zannini (ENEA, IT); Carlo Barbante (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice/Cnr-Isp, IT), Chiara Venier (Cnr-Isp, IT)
Further information on Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice:
https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/
Photos and videos from the campaigns:
Beyond EPICA Field Seasons Gallery:
https://www.beyondepica.eu/en/gallery/field-seasons/