About this episode
The episode discusses ancient ice cores and rocks that provide insights into Earth's climate and human history.
Great news! We've been nominated for a Webby Award! Our three-part Katrina series is a finalist for Best News & Politics limited series podcast. Now, we need your help. Voting ends Thursday, April 16! Cast your vote at bit.ly/webbybipisci Antarctic scientists have long known the region’s ice sheet holds clues to the planet’s ancient past. Yet even the field’s foremost experts were shocked when they extracted a six-million-year-old ice core — twice as old as expected and the oldest recorded so far. Researchers say it will provide one of our best looks ever into Earth's climatological record. In a relatively more recent past, the discovery of 40,000-year-old notches and lines carved into artifacts and cave walls in Germany, examples of protowriting, suggest humans began documenting ideas thousands of years earlier than thought. Those timescales pale however, when compared to the age of the Earth’s most ancient rocks, which have a story to tell too. Find out how the planet’s most venerable rocks, formed billions of years ago, reveal the geological conditions that allowed life to get a foothold. Guests: Huw Groucutt – Archeologist, Department of Classics and Archeology, University of…
People in this episode
Guests: Huw Groucutt, Ed Brook, Simon Lamb
Topics covered
- Antarctic ice cores
- ancient rocks
- climatological record
- protowriting
- geological conditions
- human history
Keywords
- ice core
- climate change
- ancient rocks
- protowriting
- geology
- Katrina series
- Webby Award
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Malta, Oregon State University, Victoria University at Wellington
Places: Antarctica, Germany
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