Yes. A 2026 study of Tibet’s Guliya Ice Cap reports evidence for ice older than 100,000 years and supports a record timescale reaching about 128,000 years. That is a finding about one high-altitude ice cap, based on researchers’ interpretation of ice-core records—not proof that every glacier or permafrost deposit contains ice from the last ice age.
What the Guliya study found
In a 2026 Science Advances paper, Lonnie Thompson and colleagues compared ice cores drilled on the Guliya Plateau in 1992 and 2015. The approximately 310-meter cores show similar oxygen-isotope patterns, which the authors interpret as evidence that the environmental signal is reproducible. The study combines that comparison with cosmogenic-isotope evidence and other records to support an unusually long chronology for the ice cap. Read the 2026 study in Science Advances.
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The authors report radiocarbon-dated ice from the glacier margin that supports the presence of glacial-stage ice. Isotope ratios in the 2015 core support ice older than 100,000 years. Taken together with comparisons to other records, the evidence supports a timescale reaching about 128,000 years. This is a reconstructed chronology; it should not be read as an exact age assigned to every depth or to all ice in the cap.
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The team used beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 evidence associated with the Laschamp Geomagnetic Excursion, dated to about 41,000 years ago, as part of its chronology. It also compared the ice record with oxygen-isotope records from nearby Asian monsoon cave deposits and with a dated summit core. The different lines of evidence help constrain the timescale; none amounts to a direct date for every ice layer.
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Why the age of Guliya ice is disputed
A 2025 study challenged the chronology assigned to the iconic 1992 Guliya core. Hou and colleagues dated a separate core drilled in 2021 and reported an age under 3,000 years at 175.1 meters. At a stratigraphically equivalent depth, the 1992 core had previously been assigned an age of about 100,000 years. Their paper used radiometric dating, including 210Pb, 39Ar and 14C, and argued that the earlier chronology needed reconsideration. See the 2025 study abstract indexed by PubMed.
| Chronology treatment | Core and evidence | Reported age conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Thompson and colleagues, 2026 | Composite comparison of the 1992 and 2015 cores; oxygen-isotope patterns, beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 evidence, and comparison with nearby cave records | Supports ice older than 100,000 years and a timescale reaching about 128,000 years |
| Hou and colleagues, 2025 | A separate 2021 core; radiometric dates including 210Pb, 39Ar and 14C. At 175.1 meters, the 2021 core is compared with a stratigraphically equivalent depth in the 1992 core. | Reports an age under 3,000 years at 175.1 meters in the 2021 core, contrasting with the earlier assignment of about 100,000 years at the equivalent depth in the 1992 core |
These studies did not date the same core with identical methods. The 2026 paper adds evidence from a comparison of the 1992 and 2015 cores and other records; it does not make the 2025 challenge disappear. The age claim is best stated as the conclusion supported by the newer study, alongside the fact that Guliya’s chronology remains contested.
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What “ice from the last ice age” means here
The last glacial period ended before the Holocene, the interglacial in which people now live. Saying that Guliya preserves ice from the last ice age is a readable shorthand for the study’s evidence that the ice cap’s record reaches back through a glacial cycle. It does not mean the entire cap formed at one time, or that every portion has the same age.
Why ice cores matter—and why site matters
Ice cores preserve clues about past environments. Oxygen isotopes can help researchers estimate past temperatures, while trapped air can reveal aspects of ancient atmospheric composition. Dust and other material can offer additional environmental evidence. These are general uses of ice cores; they should not be mistaken for a claim that every proxy has been analyzed in the Guliya study. The French Senate’s overview of polar ice-core research explains these methods.
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Other kinds of ice require their own age evidence. Submarine permafrost, for example, can be ancient in origin yet actively change today. MBARI reports that rising sea levels submerged Arctic shelf permafrost and that brackish groundwater from melting ancient permafrost can rise and refreeze near the seafloor under present conditions. Its research describes active formation and decomposition of submarine ice, not a blanket age for every deposit. MBARI’s report on submarine permafrost.
A University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo permit request said the age of Mauna Kea permafrost ice had not been determined; it could be from the last ice age or more recent. That deposit is therefore not a confirmed second example of ice from the last ice age. See the 2019 permit request.
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