I would disagree in that any time we lose historical evidence of this kind the foundation for future science is weakened slightly. During the USA’s recent budget stupidity (the gov’t shutdown brought on by that dickwad from TX), NPR had a story on how that shutdown would affect Antarctic research, and that scientist makes my point much better than me. Speaking about climate research happening down there:
"That project has been going for 21 years now. If we have a void in that project, we will have loss in long-term data integrity," Priscu says. "Any prediction we make on climate-based ecosystem change would be equivocal."So any loss in data corresponds directly with a loss in overall integrity, and losing historical records like this undermines science as a whole.
