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Using data from a 3053-meter-long core of ice and bedrock collected from the center of the island in 1993, Schaefer's team has found valuable clues to what the period held. In particular, the 1.55 meters of bedrock at the core's base revealed much about the island's history of glaciation, Schaefer says, in atoms that chronicle exposure to the elements. Earth's surface is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays, high energy particles streaming into Earth from space. They collide with atoms in Earth's atmosphere as well as in the uppermost centimeters of its rocks, producing new particles. Some of those particles have a particularly useful set of properties: They don't naturally occur in the rocks, and they are radioactive. Thus, they can act as a sort of clock, marking time since the rocks were last ice free and exposed to the atmosphere.
Schaefer and his colleagues measured the abundance of two cosmogenic isotopes, aluminum-26 and beryllium-10, in grains of the mineral quartz that they found within the bedrock. Each isotope is produced at a different rate by cosmic rays and has a different half-life. Once the rocks are no longer exposed to the atmosphere—for example, buried by ice—the ratio of 26Al to 10Be in the rocks changes because of their differing half-lives. Schaefer and his team found that the ratio in the bedrock was simply too low for the site to have remained buried continuously over the last 1.25 million years—suggesting that it had been exposed and ice free at least once during that time.
Schaefer says he is certain the findings show that Greenland was ice free at one point
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Username on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:16AM
So how did they stop the global warming 100,000 years ago? Is it when the Flintstones went from evil dino power to green foot power?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Some call me Tim on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:46AM
You haven't heard? The EPA mandated that catalytic converters had to be installed on all dinosaurs.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Thursday December 17 2015, @06:15AM
They killed all the dinosaurs to stop all that methane from entering the atmosphere.
You think cow farts are bad...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @08:23AM
Same way they protected their electronics from massive solar coronal ejections.
There are several [nature.com] potential [sciencedaily.com] consequences [researchgate.net] that could be disastrous for human civilization, without resulting in the complete eradication of Earth's biosphere.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday December 17 2015, @11:29AM