Scientists are examining ice taken from glaciers in the Kon-Chukurbashi ice cap in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan to find clues on how to curb rapid melting of other glacial areas. The ice cap is the only mountainous region on the planet where glaciers have not only resisted melting, but even slightly grown, a phenomenon called the “Pamir-Karakoram anomaly.”

The ice cores are the first opportunity to examine the anomaly scientifically. One fist-size sample was shipped to Yoshinori Iizuka’s facility, the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, where his team will study it.

“If we could learn the mechanism behind the increased volume of ice there, then we may be able to apply that to all the other glaciers around the world,” potentially even helping revive them, said Iizuka, a professor at Hokkaido University.

The team hopes to publish its first findings next year and will be doing “lots of trial-and-error” work to reconstruct past climate conditions, Iizuka said.