Oldest ice in history may have been found by a UND professor

ANTARCTICA (KVRR) – A University of North Dakota geology professor may have found the oldest ice in history.

Jaakko Putkonen and a team of researchers found the five-million-year-old sample in 2018 under two feet of dirt in the Ong Valley of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

They melted part of it to analyze the dirt and sand inside to date it.

Geologists believe ice can be a great way to understand the Earth’s ancient climate. Researchers examine the amount of oxygen in the ice to do so.

“We take it to a vacuum and melt it there. We can pull out a sample of the air from five million years ago, and there is really no other way of doing that,” Putkonen said.

Putkonen believes there’s 10 other areas like the one he found the ancient ice. He didn’t even think to submit his research for a Guinness world record.