Overview
- Researchers on January 14 deposited cores from Mont Blanc and Grand Combin in a 35‑meter ice cave about 9–10 meters below the surface near the Concordia station at roughly 3,200 meters elevation.
- The facility uses ambient temperatures near −52°C to preserve samples without mechanical cooling, with plateau conditions ranging from about −80°C in winter to −50°C in summer.
- The Alpine cores arrived after more than 50 days in transit, traveling in a −20°C refrigerated container aboard the Italian icebreaker Laura Bassi before an airlift to Concordia.
- Project leaders frame the effort as a race against accelerating glacier loss, citing EU Copernicus data that place 2025 as the third-warmest year on record.
- Plans call for dozens of additional cores from ranges such as the Andes, Himalaya, Pamir, Caucasus, Tajikistan and Svalbard to build a long-term international repository.