This pattern of retreat is not anticipated to change and most if not all the ice on top of Mount Kilimanjaro may be gone by 2040. Since 1984, the Northern Ice Field developed a hole near its center point which by 2003 had opened into a canyon exposing rocks for the first time in 11,000 years. By 2011, the Northern Ice Field had split in two. The retreat is not just along the margins. Between 2000 and 2007, the Northern Ice Field thinned by an average of .