Scientists in Switzerland are going to extreme lengths every summer to protect one of the oldest know glaciers in The Alps.

Miles of protective blankets have been laid over the undulating mounds and folds of the ancient ice in an effort to ebb the annual melt as average temperatures gradually climb.

The Rhone Glacier, the source of the Rhone River in the centre of the Swiss Alps, has retreated dramatically over the past 150 years, according to research.

The innovative method of protecting the ice has also been designed to allow visitors to witness the incredible ancient ice from an entirely unique perspective.

Researchers have carved a tunnel inside the glacier, large enough to walk through, allowing people to almost step back in time into a world which has not been exposed for many thousands of years.

Samples of ice had previously pre-dated the glacier to at least the 17th century. But new technological advances, coupled with access to recently-exposed rock, have now allowed them to date the ancient structure to at least 11,500 years old.

As recent ice melts have exposed rocks and soil for the first time in thousands of years, they have revealed interesting clues from remnants of organic material and artifacts of human settlements.

Using isotope measurements from rock newly exposed by the melting glacier, the scientists found that for most of the Holocene Epoch period, dating from the end of the last Ice Age about, 11,500 years ago, the Rhone was in fact smaller than it is today.

Using this dating technique, the researchers believe they may be able to apply their model to other glaciers worldwide and use the data to piece together a global picture of the Halocene period.