<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/GettyImages-73487221.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273" srcset="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/GettyImages-73487221.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273 400w, https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/GettyImages-73487221.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551 800w" > Two Tibetan women stand at the foot of the Nojing Kangtsang glacier, where they raise yaks and sell tourist books as part of a small collective. Scientists recently discovered 28 previously unknown viruses in a core sample of ice from a glacier in China's Tibetan Plateau region. (PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)

At a Glance They were found in a core sample from a glacier in China's Tibetan Plateau region.

Glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates due to global warming.

A 2016 anthrax outbreak in Siberia was blamed on melting permafrost. Scientists sampling ice cores from a glacier in China discovered 28 viruses that had been frozen in time for as long as 15,000 years, and were not previously known to mankind.

The find was detailed in a paper posted earlier this month on the website bioRxiv by researchers from Ohio State University, the University of Nebraska and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute.

As glaciers around the world continue to shrink, more and more viruses and microbes that have been frozen for possibly hundreds of thousands of years will be exposed, the researchers said in the paper. That gives scientists more opportunity to study this largely unknown field, but "in a worst case scenario, this ice melt could release pathogens into the environment," they said.

The scientists also said they fear the microbes and viruses could be lost forever if they aren't catalogued before the glaciers harboring them melt.

(MORE: Giant Sequoias Falling Victim To Climate Change, Study Says)

Studying the viruses serves two purposes. First, it could help prevent or prepare for future disease outbreaks. And secondly, it gives a scientist clues about climates throughout Earth's history and which microbes and viruses were able to survive different extreme conditions.

Glaciers around the world have retreated at unprecedented rates since the early 20th century due largely to global warming, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

And while the idea of viruses being released by melting ice sounds straight out of science fiction, something similar has happened before. A 2016 anthrax outbreak in a remote part of Siberia was blamed on spores of the virus released from a reindeer carcass that had been buried in permafrost for 75 years. The permafrost – and the carcass – were thawed by a heat wave.

Chantal Abergel, who specializes in environmental virology at the French National Center for Scientific Research and was not involved in the study, told Vice there are more such discoveries to be made.

"We are very far from sampling the entire diversity of viruses on Earth," Abergel said.

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