Antarctica is far more than just a bucket-list destination for travelers and a home for penguins. It's a veritable time machine, holding evidence from millions of years of Earth's climatic history deep within the ice.
Scientists working with the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) have collected the oldest directly dated ice cores ever drilled: 6 million years old. In studying the air and water from the samples, they glimpsed the climate of the ancient Earth, when the planet was warmer than it is today and sea levels were higher — and discovered evidence of a long-term cooling period.
