00:00Natural wonders can reveal a ton of secrets about history.
00:03Such is the case with ice cores, they contain samples of what life was like for humanity many years ago.
00:08And when scientists analyzed ice cores from Mount Kilimanjaro to figure out why the ice fields were shrinking,
00:13they found something completely unaccepted.
00:15The fragments inside the huge frozen blocks ended up supporting a well-known biblical story,
00:19proving that science and religion can go hand in hand.
00:22You're not going to believe the biblical secret they unearthed!
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00:31For many years, scientists have been drilling into glaciers and ice sheets by hand
00:34and with special machinery to extract the cores.
00:37The ice gives them a better understanding of history and humanity.
00:40With these methods, they're able to grab ice from over two miles beneath the surface.
00:44The elements of that ice may have been on Earth for as long as 800,000 years.
00:48How cool is that?
00:49Over time, many ice fields and glaciers have formed.
00:52With each layer that's added, a record of the climate during that time is created.
00:55Ice cores give lots of information about the conditions of the planet,
00:58and they can help us have a better understanding of events that happened in history that we don't know much
01:02about.
01:03Sometimes they even match up with stories from the Bible,
01:05proving that some biblical things may have actually happened.
01:08The ice cores from Mount Kilimanjaro did just that.
01:11The findings from the giant frozen blocks ended up supporting a story straight from the Old Testament
01:15that we bet you're familiar with.
01:16The connection is quite remarkable.
01:18It's nothing short of extraordinary.
01:20It dates back many thousands of years ago to a period of time way before humans started exploring
01:24the highest single freestanding mountain in the world.
01:27Mount Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania's Kilimanjaro National Park,
01:30which is a popular hiking and climbing destination.
01:33Each year, almost 30,000 people visit Mount Kilimanjaro,
01:36and over 15,000 people come to hike one of the highest mountains in the world.
01:40But due to its shrinking glaciers and ice fields,
01:43it's been the subject of many scientific studies.
01:45In fact, the glaciers and ice fields are projected to completely disappear between 2025 and 2035.
01:53Mount Kilimanjaro has three peaks,
01:55which were formed from volcanoes that are currently inactive.
01:58There's Kibo, which is the highest at 16,893,
02:01and the only dormant volcano that could erupt again.
02:04There's also Muenzi at 16,893 feet,
02:07and Shira, the lowest at 13,140 feet.
02:10Shira started being active around 2.5 million years ago,
02:13and it has a large plateau that's surrounded by the remnants of its caldera,
02:17which is the edge of a volcanic mountain.
02:19Over the years, the caldera has been reduced due to erosion.
02:22Both Kibo and Muenzi's activity is much more recent.
02:25They started erupting about 1 million years ago.
02:28Kibo and Muenzi have a plateau between them,
02:30which is known as the Saddle,
02:31with an altitude of about 14400 feet.
02:34Kibo's rugged peaks also have very interesting features.
02:37They include secondary summits, ridges,
02:39and pinnacles that were created through eroding in natural elements,
02:42like wind and rain.
02:43Kibo, the highest of Kilimanjaro's three peaks,
02:46is now dormant, but it could erupt in the future.
02:49Kibo last erupted between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago.
02:53The last activity created the current Kibo Summit Crater.
02:56We know this from the form of fumaroles breaches in the rock's crater that emit gases.
03:00Within Kibo's caldera, there's Roche Crater,
03:02which was named after mountaineer Gustav Roche,
03:05following his 25th climb of the mountain.
03:07While Mount Kilimanjaro has been familiar to East African people for thousands of years,
03:11it wasn't until 1848 that Europeans got a closer look at it.
03:15German missionaries Johan Kroff and Johannes Rebmann
03:17were the first Europeans known to attempt to reach the mountain and report its existence.
03:22Rebmann wrote an entry in his diary documenting what they saw.
03:25This morning, at 10 o'clock,
03:27we obtained a clearer view of the mountains of Jaga,
03:29the summit of one of which was covered by what looked like a beautiful white cloud,
03:33as Hans Meyer reported in his 1891 book Across East African Glaciers,
03:37an account of the first ascent of Kilimanjaro.
03:39After the German missionaries reached Kilimanjaro,
03:42many people tried to climb Kibo's peak, but they weren't successful.
03:45It wasn't until over 40 years later in 1889 that anyone reached Kibo's summit.
03:50Hans Meyer and Ludwig Pertscheller were the lucky men who can say they were the first to reach the
03:54south side of the mountain's crater.
03:56This happened to be Meyer's third attempt, and this one was perfectly planned.
03:59They established campsites with food supplies so multiple attempts at the top could be made.
04:03Even still, it was almost 25 more years until any European reached the summit of Muenzi.
04:08This climb was even more technically difficult,
04:10and it was eventually made by Germans Fritz Kluten Edward Oller in 1912.
04:14Since then, adventure lovers from all over the world have ventured to Kilimanjaro to try and
04:18climb the highest mountain in Africa, making it one of the most popular tourist destinations.
04:23Mount Kilimanjaro stands at over 19,000 feet, and it's the highest mountain in Africa,
04:28and the highest single freestanding mountain above sea level in the world.
04:31Its height explains why it's covered in snow and glaciers,
04:34even though it's in the tropics and not far from the equator.
04:36At night, the temperatures on Kilimanjaro's slopes and summit can get as low as negative
04:4020 degrees Fahrenheit.
04:42But despite these frigid temperatures, the ice fields on top of the mountain have been shrinking.
04:46While this phenomenon is nothing new as it's been happening for most of the 20th century,
04:51it's occurring at a more rapid pace.
04:52Some scientists even believe that the ice will disappear completely in the near future.
04:57So, they've taken extreme measures to try and get to the bottom of why the ice fields are shrinking.
05:01Back in 2000, a team led by Ohio State University geologist Lonnie Thompson headed to the slopes
05:07of Kilimanjaro to get some answers.
05:09Thompson and his colleagues ended up camping out on Mount Kilimanjaro for more than a month
05:13to retrieve ice cores from the mountain, but getting the samples proved to be a much more
05:16difficult test than they could have ever anticipated.
05:19Collecting them quickly turned into a complete logistical nightmare.
05:22Before they could even gather the ice samples, the scientists had to first go through many difficult
05:26obstacles. They had to get 25 official permits from Tanzanian agencies before they could even
05:31start the drilling. After the team was given the go-ahead, they then needed to get their
05:35equipment up the mountain to the drilling site, which was above 1-9-3-0-0 feet. The task wasn't
05:41simple and they needed to hire porters to help. In total, there ended up being 92 porters to get
05:46the heavy lifting done. After the permits were gotten and the holes were finally drilled,
05:51six cores from the mountain were collected. The team brought back 705 feet of frozen ice core
05:55ranging in lengths from 30 to almost 270 feet to Ohio State University's Bird Polar Research Center.
06:01And of course, the ice was stored in the freezer at the university. Now that the ice was brought
06:06back to the university, Thompson and his colleagues were ready to analyze it further. Two years later,
06:11Thompson and his team published a paper titled, Kilimanjaro Ice Core Record, Evidence of Holocene
06:16Climate Change in Tropical Africa. Their original aim was to study climate change's impact on
06:20Kilimanjaro's ice fields, but what they discovered links science with ancient history and religion.
06:24Using advanced dating methods, they found a spike in chlorine-3-6 an isotope left behind
06:29by nuclear bomb testing in the early 1952. This radioactive marker helped confirm the age
06:35of the ice and allowed scientists to trace deeper into its layers, revealing an extraordinary climatic
06:41history. Their analysis uncovered evidence of three major droughts in Africa. The first occurred
06:458,300 years ago and lasted 500 years. A second happened 5,200 years ago. But it was the third
06:53drought about 4,000 years ago and lasting 300 years that stood out the most. Historical records link
06:58this period to a devastating drought in Egypt, threatening the empire's stability. This same
07:03period aligns with the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis, also found in the Torah and Quran.
07:07Joseph, the 11th son of Jacob, was favored by his father, sparking jealousy among his brothers.
07:13He was eventually sold into slavery and taken to Egypt. Joseph was bought by Potiphar,
07:18an Egyptian official. After a false accusation by Potiphar's wife, he was imprisoned. While
07:23incarcerated, Joseph gained a reputation for interpreting dreams accurately, including those
07:27of fellow inmates, the pharaoh's cupbearer and chief baker. When the pharaoh himself experienced a
07:32troubling dream, seven sickly cows consuming seven healthy ones and wilted ears of corn devouring
07:38good ones no one could interpret it. That's when the cupbearer remembered Joseph's gift,
07:42prompting the pharaoh to summon him. Joseph interpreted the dream as a prophecy.
07:45Egypt would face seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. Impressed,
07:50the pharaoh appointed him vizier. Joseph advised storing surplus grain during the good years,
07:55enabling Egypt to survive the famine. This tale aligns with what Thompson's team found.
08:00Ice Corps data showed that around 4,000 years ago, a major drought occurred marked by a thin layer of
08:05dust matching the famine described in Genesis. Other historical accounts confirm this period was
08:10one of great hardship, threatening Egypt's rule and transforming the Sahara into an uninhabitable
08:14desert. It's rare for science and religion to intersect so clearly, but in this case,
08:19the biblical account seems to reflect historical climate pattern. While not everyone interprets
08:23religious texts literally, some stories may contain factual elements rooted in real events.
08:28Could such a drought happen again? Thompson believes so. Whatever happened to cause these
08:32dramatic climate changes in the past could certainly occur again, he said. Today, with 70% of the world's
08:38population living in the tropics, the impact would be even more severe. Understanding past climate events is
08:44crucial to preparing for the future. When Thompson and his team climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to study
08:48shrinking ice fields, they didn't expect to uncover a story that echoed the Bible. This rare convergence
08:53of science and religion reveals how ancient texts might be more than myth they may hold clues to real
08:58historical events. We can't wait to see what other historical treasures are unearthed in the future
09:02and the biblical secrets they'll reveal.
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