Experts survey the glacier ice on Mount Ararat for the first time
Facing wind and cold, with only half as much oxygen to breathe as in the valley, a German-Turkish research team surveyed the glacier on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey for the first time in July, at over 5,000 metres above sea level. For two weeks, the team explored the ice field, which until then had been a blank page for researchers. Their goal was to find out whether the ice on Turkey’s highest mountain preserves a unique archive of climate and cultural history. The problem is that the archive is now under threat; due to global warming, the Ararat ice cap is shrinking at an accelerating pace, and with every summer, information is lost that very few others sources could provide. To collect this information, the project brought experts from the fields of archaeology and glaciology together in a joint undertaking.
The ice cap was surveyed using a combination of ground-based radio echo sounding and active seismic techniques. This method allows researchers to map the thickness and the subglacial bed of the ice. ‘Despite wind and cold, we obtained all the data we need,’ says Dr Coen Hofstede of the Alfred Wegener Institute, who was responsible for the measurements on site. ‘Now we can determine where to drill the longest continuous ice core.’ During the next expedition, the research team aims to recover the actual ice cores. If successful, it would yield the first-ever ice core from Mount Ararat.
‘This represents an entirely new source of data for archaeology,’ says Prof Dr Achim Lichtenberger, project leader from the University of Münster. ‘So far, we’ve had to depend on what lies in the ground. The ice, on the other hand, could preserve a continuous chronicle of human activity, layer by layer over millennia.’ The ice also holds valuable data for glaciology. Preserved within its layers are the composition of past atmospheres, the transport of dust, and traces of earlier volcanic eruptions. This could allow researchers to reconstruct, for example, how well-known climate phases such as the Roman Climate Optimum or the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) played out in this particular region.
The mountain's geographical location is especially valuable for research. It lies at the crossroads of some of the world's most important early civilisations. While comparable studies in the Mediterranean region have so far been carried out only in the Alps, the Middle East is still largely unexplored. ‘This is the region where agriculture began, where early centres of mining and metallurgy emerged,’ explains Prof Dr Ünsal Yalçın of Isparta University in Turkey. ‘If we are lucky, we will find in the ice not only climate data but also fine metal particles from ancient smelting furnaces or residues from early slash-and-burn agriculture. Mount Ararat would then serve as an archive for the entire region of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.’
Participating institutions
The project is headed by the Institute of Classical Archaeology and Christian Archaeology at the University of Münster and is supported by Isparta University in Turkey. The geophysical surveys are being carried out by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, together with the Institute of Environmental Physics at Heidelberg University. Other partners include the University of Van, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research in Innsbruck and the Turkish Mountaineering Federation. The German-Turkish project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.