Growing inside the caves of the tropical Pacific island of Borneo are some of the keys to understanding how the Earth's climate suddenly changed - several times - over the last 25,000 years. By analyzing stalagmites, the pilar-like rock formations that stem from the ground in caves, they were able to produce a high-resolution and continuous record of the climate over this equatorial rainforest.
"These stalagmites are, in essence, tropical ice cores forming over thousands of years," said Partin. "Each layer of the rock contains important chemical traces that help us determine what was going on in the climate thousands of years ago, much like the ice cores drilled from Greenland or Antarctica."
<a href="http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_account/borneo_ice_cores_in_underground_caves_give_clues_to_climate_change">via Scientific Blogging.com</a> (with Alan Cressler photos!)