New frontiers, from the highlands to the deep sea

Retreating ice spills secrets Thanks to climate change, glacial archaeology is a burgeoning field. It involves rescuing artifacts, the past’s secrets, as they melt out of high-mountain ice. You might call it new icy frontier. Each year, from August through September—peak season, hikers may know—a group hardy archaeologists and trusted helpers based in Innlandet, Norway, makes strenuous chilly trek into Norwegian highlands for project called Secrets Ice. The team backpacks remote areas, sometimes enlisting pack horses carry equipment but otherwise toting themselves. uses Everest-rated camping gear, wears crampons, watches vigilantly blizzards. While surveying, members walk back forth hours—at times near 2,000 m elevation at 30-degree slope over loose rocks, says Lars Pilø, archaeologist codirector But it’s all part thrill expedition.