Climatic and Environmental Studies by Means of Ice Cores

More than twenty years ago the Instituto Antartico Argentino initiated ice-cores studies in the Antarctic Peninsula. It also carried out the first work of this type in the Argentine central Andes. Until recently, sample analyses were performed in two prestigious French Laboratories in the frame of a joint cooperation. However, installation of the Laboratorio de Estratigrafia Glaciar y Geoquimica del Agua y de la Nieve, LEGAN (Laboratory of Glacier Stratigraphy and Water and Snow Geochemistry), in Mendoza, Argentina, has been recently finished and is equipped with the necessary facilities to develop glaciochemical determinations. Among our principal scientific results we mention the first isotopic-climatic reconstruction of the Antarctic Peninsula for the last 400 years.