Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock • Hacker News Board

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#21

Post by FredPret » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

sdfghswe wrote: post #2

Can't believe they don't show a photo of what appears to be a 10 meter in diameter, 2.7km deep hole.

There's a bright future in big holes.

Imagine what we can get our hands on if we could find a nice, cheap way to dig 10+ km down all over the place. The mantle is 2000+km thick. Our deepest mines are 3-4 km deep.

We could also harvest a ton of heat this way - and maybe even use it for garbage disposal. Master Of Orion 2 had the Deep Core Mines and Core Waste Dumps - maybe that's the way to go!

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#22

Post by TheRealPomax » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

sdfghswe wrote: post #2

Can't believe they don't show a photo of what appears to be a 10 meter in diameter, 2.7km deep hole.

Ice cores are a few inches across. The photo at the top of the article is not of the drill hole but of the hole they had to dig in the snow to get to the ice they actually drilled.

See the photo of the final ice core [1] to see how miniscule the actual drill hole is.

[1] https://science.ku.dk/english/press/news/2023/pay-dirt-for-i...

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#23

Post by ksd482 » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

JimtheCoder wrote: post #10

marcosdumay wrote: post #6

Please, if the title is going to be that, at least remove the capitalization from that "m", so it represents an unity instead of "millions of something undisclosed".

"so it represents an unity instead" If you are going to be pedantic, that "an" should be an "a", no?

That’s what I was thinking, yes.

You have to think HOW you pronounce the word. The ‘u’ in “unity” is pronounced as “you” which starts with a consonant. Hence, you use ‘a’ not “an”.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#24

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#25

Post by roter » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

At approximately the same depth drilled, Antarctica e.g. EPICA @ Dome C yields 8 interglacials [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Project_for_Ice_Corin...

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#26

Post by wwwtyro » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #20

holoduke wrote: post #12

Would it theoreticaly possible to find frozen animals 120.000 years old with still intact DNA?

Yeah, DNA in ice has a half-life of a million years. Seems very much possible.

What does half-life mean in the context of DNA? One base pair corrupted / unrecoverable? Half of them?

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#27

Post by dclowd9901 » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

I’ve always wondered: what do they do if the shaft snaps somewhere in the middle?

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#28

Post by AmericanOP » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

holoduke wrote: post #12

Would it theoreticaly possible to find frozen animals 120.000 years old with still intact DNA?

[flagged]

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#29

Post by ultrablack » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#30

Post by jprd » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #16

iknowSFR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, there’s an entire multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to photos of holes.

[flagged]

https://old.reddit.com/r/trypophobia/