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An international research team has successfully drilled and retrieved a 9,186-foot-long (2,800-meter-long) ice core from Antarctica that dates back 1.2 million years. The sample extended so deep that it reached the bedrock beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

“Antarctic ice cores are like Rosetta Stones,” said Jim White, Craver Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in an email. “They are unique in that they speak the language of temperature as well as the language of (carbon dioxide) levels, allowing us to see how these two key climate variables interact.” White was not involved in retrieving the ice core. But he said the ice has the potential to yield a great deal of information “about the fundamental dynamics of climate change on our planet, and the importance of that cannot be overstated.”

White was not involved in retrieving the ice core. But he said the ice has the potential to yield a great deal of information “about the fundamental dynamics of climate change on our planet, and the importance of that cannot be overstated.”

CNN