The Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition on 23 January drilled to a depth of 3029 meters at Japan's Dome Fuji Station in east Antarctica and recovered ice estimated to be one million years old. If the age is verified, the ice core will be the oldest ice ever retrieved, 20,000 years older than the one from East Antarctica's Dome C. The core will be dated using ice flow law models, cosmic ray analysis, geomagnetic time markers, and comparisons to ocean sediment cores.