European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA)

The first one is currently being drilled at Dome Concordia (Dome C) and have reached a depth of about 2800 metres which correspond to about 400,000 years of climatic information. The drilling should provide scientists with one of the longest undisturbed climate archives, extending more than 500 ka.

The second core site should be characterised by higher accumulation rates with a dominant contribution of precipitation from the South Atlantic Ocean (the Atlantic signal), to make the link with climate data obtained from the Greenland ice sheet and obtain more detailed information of the last glacial cycle. This drilling was started in Dronning Maud Land (about 75S, 0E/W) during the 2001/02 austral summer and will continue for another two/three field seasons.