Lake Vostok, spied by satellite.
Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center - Scientific Visualization Studio; Canadian Space Agency; and RADARSAT International Inc.
Several Russian news outlets are reporting that Russian scientists have successfully drilled to Antarctica's Lake Vostok, a massive liquid lake cut off from daylight for 14 million years and buried beneath 2 miles (3.7 kilometers) of ice.
The lake is the object of a years-long project to study its waters, which may house life forms new to science.
The news appears to have originated from Ria Novosti, a state-run news agency, which ran the following quote from an unnamed source with no affiliation: "Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters [12,362 feet] and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake."
The same news report went on to discuss an old theory that Nazis built a secret base at Lake Vostok in the 1930s, and that German submarines brought Hitler and Eva Braun's remains to Antarctica for cloning purposes following the German surrender in World War II.
"There are a lot of rumors going around about penetrating the lake, and we need the Russian program to make the official announcement," said John Priscu, a University of Montana microbiologist and veteran Antarctic researcher who has been involved in Lake Vostok investigations for years
"If they were successful, their efforts will transform the way we do science in Antarctica and provide us with an entirely new view of what exists under the vast Antarctic ice sheet," Priscu told OurAmazingPlanet in an email.
It appears there has been no official confirmation of the team's success. There are no press releases on the website of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, the government agency that oversees the country's polar science expeditions.
Possible cold-loving life
Lake Vostok, about the size of Lake Ontario, is the largest lake on the icy continent. Scientists estimate the lake itself is roughly 14 million years old — the age of the ice sheet that covers it — and that the water currently in the lake is roughly 1 million years old.
Scientists believe the lake could be home to cold-loving microbial life adapted to living in total darkness. The organisms likely survive using mechanisms similar to the ever-increasing parade of creatures that have been discovered living in the total darkness of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, deriving energy from minerals in seafloor rocks.
Today's news follows on the heels of other unsourced reporting from American news outlets last week, which claimed the scientists were lost, and that something sinister was afoot at Vostok Station. Priscu, who has been in contact with Russian science headquarters in St. Petersburg over the course of the 2011-2012 field season, has firmly refuted such reports.
The Vostok team has been racing against the approach of Antarctica's brutal winter weather. Extreme cold can prevent aircraft from operating, and could maroon the team at the station during the total darkness and bitter temperatures of austral winter.
Temperatures have already plunged below minus 49 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 45 degrees Celsius), and Priscu said it was likely the team would need to leave by this week at the latest. [The Coldest Places on Earth]
Race to test for life
Even if the Russian team has reached the lake, they will be forced to wait until next season to actually sample the water because of the type of drill they're using, which can bring back only ice — not liquid water — from the deep borehole. The water must freeze over the Antarctic winter before researchers can lay hands on it, to see what organisms might be living in Lake Vostok.
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16 Comments
Add CommentIt is a habit of RIA Novosty to make rumors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll I see here is blind speculation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEt tu Scientific American?
What is this, the History Channel? Mind-boggling!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuoth the SciAm article:
The news appears to have originated from Ria Novosti, a state-run news agency, which ran the following quote from an unnamed source with no affiliation: "Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters [12,362 feet] and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake."
The same news report went on to discuss an old theory that Nazis built a secret base at Lake Vostok in the 1930s, and that German submarines brought Hitler and Eva Braun's remains to Antarctica for cloning purposes following the German surrender in World War II.
[snip! Can't have been too important...]
"If they were successful, their efforts will transform the way we do science in Antarctica and provide us with an entirely new view of what exists under the vast Antarctic ice sheet," Priscu told OurAmazingPlanet in an email.
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Good to know that the Russians are checking to make sure that Hitler isn't secretly planning to start World War III from under Lake Vostok, eh wot?
I think the Russians are desperate and afraid America is going to beat them to the punch bowl again, so they hollow out that they were in line first, so when America and Europe breaks through the ice first, they can call us liars and say that we are just trying to steal their glory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI dream of the day when we grow past this mentality of competition with the Russians on everything. Cold war is over people. Sad when even scientist can't move forward.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre we sure they are even doing this. It sounds shady to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrings new meaning the phrase "Cold War".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith that said. In my opinion they will find nothing spectacular.
How can the water be superoxygenated. It has no exchange with the atmosphere. If anything it will have a excess of Co2, methane and other gases released frrom the base rock it sits on. We already know there is coal under the antarctic.
If the lakes have only been known from the 60's then it makes sense that many lakes have come and gone in the "million" years guess. I have seen no detrimental effects upun the ocean. It is just the opposite. The Antarctic oceans are the most prolific areas of the worlds seas.
Can anyone name one thing that has improved your life by exploring the Antarctic.
We got "Tang" and inkpens that write in any position from the spacerace.
Drilling through to Lake Vostok is quite an achievement. The extreme cold makes this a difficult place to work. It gets cold where I live but, -129F or anything even close to that is hard to imagine. We're looking forward to samples and continuing research on this mysterious place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know what's another mystery?
It's a mystery to me that trolls even bother to look at Scientific American just to post negative comments about the articles. My guess would be that their lives are empty, their hearts are full of hate, and they lack imagination. So they can think of nothing better to do.
The writers on Scientific America do all right. They write brief, interesting articles on a variety of topics. It's far more enjoyable reading than the relentless and sordid stream of crime, murder, scandal, and gossip that we get force-fed elsewhere.
This is where I take my coffee break in a more elegant and positive view of the reality that we all share.
I'd rather get my force-fed, relentless and sordid stream of articles concerning humanity's assault on Gaia from Scientific American than anywhere else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think we'll start seeing bottles of Vostok on supermarket shelves pretty soon. That should be one benefit of Antarctic exploration. I'd rather drink Vostok water than Tang anyday - unless the Tang is mixed with Vostok, of course. Even better would be Vostok Vodka.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience moves forward when called upon by circumstances such as war, whether cold or hot. The period spanning the late 1800's to 1950 saw scientific achievements which dwarf what has occurred from 1950 to now. That period of achievement just happened to be the most violent humanity has ever known.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI totally agree with you sparcboy ! If we can do things in space together why not in the Antaractic? What's the matter America, are you afraid the Russians will have a station in the Antarctic to do experiments in before you do? Grow up !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYesterday minister Trutnev presented to Putin a water from Vostok (http://info.sibnet.ru/?id=322502). Putin offered him to drink this water. He said it would be great if a member of Russian Government drank it like dinosaurs million years before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday, the lake exploration. Tomorrow? Development, resort hotels, tourist accommodations and restaurants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Russians are learning from their Capitalistic Overlords nicely.
God loves you, too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome important points about the Vostok lake:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this((The origin of its water))
may be the percolation of the ice on the surface of the earth above; it is like the percolation of the ice on mountain tops to issue as water srings on the slopes of mountains and in the valleys below.
>> Such percolation may be from the periphery of the Antarctica at spring and summer season, and then it will reach to this underground depression: the lake.
>> Or the pressure of the heaped up ice in the Arctica will cause the melting of some ice in the lower layers of this heaped ice.
>> In such instances, the water will be almost ((sweat water)).
((The temperature)) will relatively be warm because:
>> it is faraway from the frozen sufrace.
>> it is near to the hot core of the earth: like the hot water springs.
((Life forms))will certainly be present there, in the form of microbes: bacteria and some algae and fungi; and may be there are some simple animals: like worms, snails, and frogs.
Of course, high trees and large animals cannot exist there.
I derive this from an aya in the Glorious Quran 21: 30
وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ الْمَاء كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيٍّ
The explanation:
(And We made – of water – every living thing)
See that even the big meteorites near the Earth may have water and so they may include some plants and small animals.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/new_page_2.htm#Meteorites