Deep-ocean sediments carry the record of that oceanic behaviour, and hence of climate change. This chapter provides evidence that the deep ocean cooled gradually from the mid Eocene onwards, while ice growth occurred rapidly at certain periods, starting in the earliest Oligocen. The world's freezer, Antarctica sucks in heat from the tropics and pours out cold. Drilling through strata on land in Antarctica began in 1971, in the international Dry Valley Drilling Project (DVDP), and was extended seawards by drilling through the ‘fast ice’ close to shore. The chapter reviews the results of the drilling on land and from the fast ice of this Project. In contrast to the major development of ice on Antarctica starting 34 Ma ago, it was long thought that the ice sheets of the Northern Hemisphere did not develop until the Pleistocene, beginning around 2.6 Ma ago Antarctica; Arctic glaciation; climate change; cool tropics paradox; deep ocean; Dry Valley Drilling Project;
global cooling; Northern Hemisphere
