THE SCIENCE OF SEDIMENT
The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice
If the ice sheet covering Greenland melted, global sea levels would rise 21 feet (7 meters), profoundly impacting our planet. How, why, and when could this happen? The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice is an award-winning documentary film about a time long ago when Greenland was greener, and what that means for our future. The film details the startling discovery of a long-lost sediment core pulled from the depths of a Cold War-era military base in Greenland.
This sediment unveils an ancient ecosystem and holds the key to crucial science of the melting Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS)uncovering the very real fact that the Greenland Ice Sheet has fully receded in the past, and with our C02 levels double of what they were then, the ice will melt again, raising sea levels across the globe.
The finding that the ice sheet melted in the past completely transforms our understanding of the stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The research itself is detailed in a comprehensive paper in Science, and has received world-wide success. The film was funded by the National Science Foundation as a collaborative research grant across multiple academic institutions and highlights cutting-edge science.
a long lost core
where science meets art
Hundreds of meters below ice, life once flourished. Camp Century's long lost ice core reveals fossilized plants, seeds, and bugs that could only have thrived in freshwater streams surrounded by luscious vegetation. Using plants and seed fossils as a window into the past, scientists determined the climate 400,000 years ago, when rivers flowed through what we now see has solid ice, was very similar to our climate today. However, the carbon dioxide concentration in today’s atmosphere is twice what it was last time Greenland was ice-free.
“The question is not whether we are changing the climate and warming the planet. The real question is: how fast are Greenland and Antarctica melting?”
— Dorthy Peteet, Paleoecologist
Foote’s Warning
Eunice Foote, a female scientist in 1856 presented evidence that carbon dioxide could warm Earth’s atmosphere—an insight largely dismissed. The film draws a line from her early warnings to today’s cutting-edge research as scientists reconstruct an ancient, greener Greenland when atmospheric CO₂ was half of today’s levels. Through innovative methods—from cosmic ray exposure dating to forensic botany and chemical analysis of ancient leaf waxes—researchers now know the Greenland Ice Sheet has collapsed before and their findings show it is on track to melt again.