Ice “Memory” to be Protected in Antarctica
The Ice Memory Foundation is preparing for the upcoming transport of ice cores from mountain glaciers to the Ice Memory Sanctuary in Antarctica.
The announcement was made as part of the launch of the UN Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034) during the third UN Ocean Conference in Nice on June 8.
Preserved in the Ice Memory Sanctuary at Concordia Station, the cores will be available for study by future generations of scientists.
The first Ice Memory alpine ice cores – extracted between 2016 and 2023 – will leave the laboratory cold rooms of the CNR-ISP in Italy in October.
Departing the port of Trieste, they will be transported aboard the icebreaker Laura Bassi, an Italian research vessel under care of Italy’s National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics.
After crossing the Atlantic and sailing to Christchurch, New Zealand, the ice cores will reach the Italian Station Mario Zucchelli in Antarctica in early December. They will then be transported by plane to the Franco-Italian Concordia Station.
Concordia is located at an altitude of 3,233 meters on the High Antarctic Plateau (1,100 kilometers from the nearest coast and 2,500 kilometers from the geographic South Pole). The average temperature there is -54°C, dropping to as low as -84°C in winter.
Despite its remoteness, the existing logistics chain and the exceptional stability of the temperature 10 metres below the surface of the snow make it an ideal location for storage of the ice samples.
The cores will be safeguarded in the dedicated Ice Memory Sanctuary approved by The Antarctic Treaty System in 2024 and funded by the Prince Albert II Foundation. The cave dug into the snow will guarantee long-term preservation of the samples without the need for artificial refrigeration.
Dozens of other Ice Memory heritage ice cores from all over the world will join them in the coming years.