Best of CASE District VI Award
 

Institution: University of North Dakota

Title of entry: UND geologist unearths world's oldest ice

About this entry: UND Today is the official news source for the University of North Dakota. We cover breaking news, student and alumni success stories, groundbreaking (or just plain interesting) research and storytelling that makes people smile. We even write about old ice. Really old ice.

People don’t usually think about how old ice can be — except for scientists known as geomorphologists, who wind up thinking about the age of ice and other such mysteries multiple times a day.

In 2023, a geomorphologist at UND brought back ancient ice — nearly 5 million years old, in fact — from Antarctica to the University. This ice likely is the oldest on the planet, and it holds clues for modern-day climate researchers. Moreover, contained within the meters-long core samples of the ice are ancient clues — preserved through eons, and just waiting for discovery — about life on Earth.

This story is about getting to Antarctica (after an airplane engine failure), the process of extracting ice cores, why what may be discovered within them is meaningful and significant, and the cores’ weekslong voyage home.