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Excavations for Copenhagen Metro dig up evidence of interglacial period

An unexpected discovery was made as a result of excavation work at the construction site of a new underground rail station at Trianglen in Copenhagen.

Published: 30 January 2019 15:48 CET

Excavations for Copenhagen Metro dig up evidence of interglacial period

A 2016 photo showing construction work on the Copenhagen Metro. Photo: Thomas Lekfeldt/Ritzau Scanpix

Work on the new Metro station revealed traces of a hitherto unknown interglacial period in Denmark, science media Videnskab.dk writes based on research published in the journal Boreas.

Analysis of amino acids enabled researchers to demonstrate the existence of a period around 200,000 years ago which punctuated two ice ages, otherwise known as an interglacial.

An interglacial is a warmer period such as the one we are currently living in, which falls between two ice ages.

The Copenhagen Metro find is remarkable due to its location, according to Ole Bennike, a geologist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).

“This is certainly a surprise, because lots of drillings have been done in Copenhagen. It’s very unlikely to come across these types of interglacial deposits,” Bennike told Ritzau.

Global climate has varied between ice ages and interglacials for millions of years. The current interglacial began around 11,700 years ago.

Researchers have previously found evidence of four interglacial periods in Denmark, with the new find representing the fifth.

Further discoveries in future are likely, according to Bennike.

“Our ability to date [sediment] layers is becoming better and better. New methods are being developed with which to date these layers,” he said.

READ ALSO: Crater bigger than Paris is discovered under Greenland ice

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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