Polar scientists conducted a study that will “tell” the history of the Earth over the past 20,000 years

Ukrainian scientists from the “Akademik Vernadskyi” polar station took 7 columns of sediments from the bottom of the Southern Ocean.

National Antarctic Science Center/

Ukrainian scientists from the “Akademik Vernadsky” polar station conducted geological studies that will help to find out how the climate has changed over the past 20,000 years and what to expect from it in the near future.

About this are reported at the National Antarctic Science Center.

During the flight of the Ukrainian research icebreaker “Noosphere” from Chile to “Vernadskyi”, scientists conducted the second stage of the study of the Southern Ocean.

The Poles took seven columns tosediments in seven points near the station, in particular in the Penola and French straits, where a tectonic fault and glacial valleys were previously discovered.

Penola Strait is located between the Argentine Islands and the continent. It separates the archipelago of the Argentine Islands from the Antarctic Peninsula. The strait separates the New Zealand islands of D’Urville and South.

On board the research vessel, the raised samples were described, photographed and divided into parts for further delivery to Ukraine. They will be studied in the laboratories of Kyiv and Odesa.

According to polarists, bottom sediments are a kind of “record” of Earth’s history, as their analysis makes it possible to understand what happened on the planet thousands and millions of years ago, and to make predictions for the future, in particular, regarding the global climate.

“The transition from the last ice age (about 20,000 years ago) to the current maximum temperatures did not take place in one stage. This process took place step by step, when warmer periods occurred, which were then replaced by short periods of cooling.

Analysis of this dynamic process will help to understand what is happening to the global climate and what can await us in the near future – further warming or, on the contrary, cooling.” – explains the participant of the seasonal expedition, geologist Serhii Kadurin.

Antarctica was not chosen by chance for such a study. According to scientists, the continent has been minimally affected by human activity and has preserved an ice sheet that is several tens of millions of years old.

We will remind you that in the first Antarctic season of “Noosphere” in 2022, Ukrainian scientists will raise two columns of bottom sediments from the Penola Strait. The results of their research showed how the topography of the Argentine Islands changed over the past 25,000 years.

On the basis of these findings, the scientists determined the places of selection of new samples in the Southern Ocean.

We used to reportedthat Ukrainian polar explorers decipher the genomes of organisms from Antarctic lakes.