Back In Time
The samples were taken from the highest peak on Mount Kilimanjaro. The crew that went through the trouble of finding and extracting them had no idea just how much of an impact they would have.
The ice cores would give a glimpse back in time and either prove or disprove a very old belief. Only time would tell.
Climate Change
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Due to climate change, Mount Kilimanjaro’s ice has been receding. Scientists hypothesize that by 2060 there won’t be any ice left.
This means that it is now possible to drill deep enough into the ice to get some samples that have been there for hundreds of years. They had to take this opportunity.
Lonnie Thompson
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Lonnie Thompson decided to lead a team to get those ice samples. They came from Ohio State University and wanted in part to figure out why the ice was disappearing so quickly, it wasn’t just climate change that was doing it.
They knew they’d have to camp out at over 19,000 feet in order to get the right samples that they needed.
The Expedition
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An expedition was carried out to get to just the right spot on Mount Kilimanjaro. Permission from the government of Tanzania was needed as well as around a dozen permits. After that, they were almost set.
They just needed to get themselves and their equipment up the mountain. It wouldn’t be easy, but why should it? They were about to find a secret that had been closely guarded by the mountain for centuries.
Results
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The ice cores that they drilled up could show them what was in the air and water up to 800 years ago! This meant that they could analyze these samples to figure out how the world was at the time. They show that the area was suffering a great drought nearly a millennia ago.
This means that the book of Genesis was right about the drought when it talks about the story of Joseph. This was a discovery that they couldn’t believe. Would there be more to uncover from the samples?