Antarctic sediments muddy climate debate

Ocean-floor sediments drilled from Antarctic regions recently covered by ice shelves suggest that those shelves were only 2,000 years old. This finding could compel scientists to reassess whether the current destruction of polar ice is due primarily to human-caused global warming.

In the early 1990s, part of the ice shelf atop the Prince Gustav Channel, which separates the Antarctic peninsula and James Ross Island, broke apart.