European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica

The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) is a multinational European project for deep ice core drilling in Antarctica. Its main objective is to obtain full documentation of the climatic and atmospheric record archived in Antarctic ice by drilling and analyzing two ice cores and comparing these with their Greenland counterparts (GRIP and GISP). Evaluation of these records will provide information about the natural climate variability and mechanisms of rapid climatic changes during the last glacial epoch.

Deep drilling took place at two sites in Antarctica: Concordia Station on dome C and Kohnen Station.

The European Science Foundation EPICA Programme (1996–2005) provides co-ordination for EPICA drilling activities on dome C and Kohnen Station, which are supported by the European Commission and by national contributions from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

In 2008 the project received the Descartes Prize for research.

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