20 years, 3km of ice... and Russia hits lake

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SinghDude

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Moscow - Russia said on Wednesday it had pierced through Antarctica's frozen crust to a vast, subglacial lake that has lain untouched for at least 14 million years hiding what scientists believe may be unknown organisms and clues to life on other planets.

Sealed deep under the ice sheet, Lake Vostok is one of the world's last unexplored frontiers. Scientists suspect its depths may reveal new life forms and a glimpse of the planet before the ice age.

If life is found in the lake's icy darkness, it may provide the best answer yet to whether life can exist in the extreme conditions on Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa.

“The 57th Russian Antarctic expedition has penetrated the waters of the subglacial Lake Vostok,” Valery Lukin, head of the Russian Antarctic expedition, said in a statement.

After 20 years of stop-go drilling, the Russian team raced to chew through the final metres of ice and breached Lake Vostok in time to take the last flight out on February 6 before the onset of Antarctica's harsh winter. It was here that the coldest temperature found on Earth, minus 89.2 Celsius (minus 128.6 Fahrenheit), was recorded.

Lukin said the breakthrough came on February 5, on the eve of the mission's departure: “At a depth of 3,769 metres (12,365 ft) the drill bit made contact with the real body of water.

“The discovery of this lake is comparable to the first space flight in its technological complexity, its importance and its uniqueness,” Lukin told Interfax.

But Russia must wait for the Antarctic summer to collect and study water samples, leaving the door open for U.S. and British missions to explore two other subglacial lakes and beat it to be the first to answer the question of whether life exists under the polar ice. “We call it extraterrestrial life,” Russian astrobiologist Sergei Bulat told Vesti 24 state television. “It will be useful to the search for life on other icy planets like Jupiter's satellite Europa.”

A century after the first expeditions to the South Pole, the discovery of Antarctica's hidden network of subglacial lakes via satellite imagery in the late 1990s set off a new exploratory fervour among scientists the world over.

“This is scientific exploration, this is work that no one has ever done before,” Martin Siegert, head of the University of Edinburgh's School of Geosciences, told Reuters.

“This is probably one of the last frontiers on our planet that remains largely unknown to us,” said Siegert, who is leading a British expedition to explore Lake Ellsworth in West Antarctica in 2012-2013.

Experts say the ice sheet acts like a blanket, trapping in the Earth's geothermal heat and preventing Antarctic lakes from freezing.

If there is life in Vostok and other ice-bound lakes, it is unlikely to be anything more complicated than single-cell organisms adapted to survive in the high-pressure, sunless environment, Siegert said.

“It is just imagination, we don't really know until we go in,” he said.

Beneath the vast white landscape, Lake Vostok is the deepest and most isolated of Antarctica's subglacial lakes. Its size compares to Siberia's Lake Baikal or one of the Great Lakes, increasing the chance of biodiversity in its waters.

Scientists estimate the body of water is roughly 1 million years old and supersaturated with oxygen, resembling no other known environment on Earth.

John Priscu of Montana State University suspects that an oasis of life may lurk there, teeming around thermal vents.

“I hope that they can confirm unequivocally that there is indeed microbial life in the lake,” said Priscu, the chief scientist on the U.S. project to probe subglacial Lake Whillans.

Russia has dreamed of uncovering the lake's secrets since the 1996 discovery that the low-lying buildings and radio towers of its Antarctic station sit above the ancient waters.

But the drive to explore this unspoilt environment is not without controversy.

The Russian borehole, pumped full of kerosene and freon to keep it from freezing shut, hangs like a needle over the pristine lake. “The ice core at Vostok is there and it won't go away because it is full of anti-freeze,” said Siegert.

In a bid to address international concerns, Russia halted drilling for several years to devise a cleaner method in 2000.

It used a smaller thermal drill to punch through to the lake and back pressured the borehole to force lake water to rise up into it, effectively sipping up samples from the lake's surface. - Reuters
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Good stuff Russia :)
 
G

GreyBush

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50 bucks says this is bottled and sold as a health drink in the next 5 years.
 
E

Elimentals

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JStrike said:
20 years / 4 km
Typical Government project
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The amount of planning needed not to break the ice and prevent contamination I think this is well beyond a simple 4 km deep hole in the ground.

doobyscoo said:
50 bucks says this is bottled and sold as a health drink in the next 5 years.
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They will just do like all bottle water companies out there, fill it from a tap and slap a label on it saying it comes from the lake.

On topic:
Personally I just hope they sealed it properly so that it doesn't get contaminated either way during the arctic winter.
Also if the next expedition lands in December (Mayan end of the world) and find a mad Norwegian pursuing a dog they would run like hell.
 
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JStrike

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Elimentals said:
The amount of planning needed not to break the ice and prevent contamination I think this is well beyond a simple 4 km deep hole in the ground.



They will just do like all bottle water companies out there, fill it from a tap and slap a label on it saying it comes from the lake.

On topic:
Personally I just hope they sealed it properly so that it doesn't get contaminated either way during the arctic winter.
Also if the next expedition lands in December (Mayan end of the world) and find a mad Norwegian pursuing a dog they would run like hell.
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Ha I bet if it was driven by ExxonMobile, they would have reached the lake in a matter of months

They should have opened it up to enterprise, and allowed patenting of anything found (and selling of the remaining water). Would have been done and dusted ages ago
 
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JStrike

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Elimentals said:
The amount of planning needed not to break the ice and prevent contamination I think this is well beyond a simple 4 km deep hole in the ground.



They will just do like all bottle water companies out there, fill it from a tap and slap a label on it saying it comes from the lake.

On topic:
Personally I just hope they sealed it properly so that it doesn't get contaminated either way during the arctic winter.
Also if the next expedition lands in December (Mayan end of the world) and find a mad Norwegian pursuing a dog they would run like hell.
Click to expand...

They have sealed it with kerosene to prevent refreezing
 
E

Elimentals

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JStrike said:
They have sealed it with kerosene to prevent refreezing
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I hope they did it in such a way that it doesnt leak into the lake. Paraffin is filled with all types of bio matter and can even promote bacterial growth.
 
J

JStrike

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Elimentals said:
I hope they did it in such a way that it doesnt leak into the lake. Paraffin is filled with all types of bio matter and can even promote bacterial growth.
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Some of it will get into the lake, but even if all of it ends up in the lake, it’d be in the range of parts per quadrillion contamination. Not a major worry
 
E

Elimentals

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JStrike said:
Some of it will get into the lake, but even if all of it ends up in the lake, it’d be in the range of parts per quadrillion contamination. Not a major worry
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Well seeing that we dont know whats in there it actually does.

If we only find bacterial life in there thats 1 cell per 10 gallons of water we will not know if we introduced it. If we find a fish or an insect then yes we can say "Wasnt me"

Esp seeing that they giving it almost a year to "breed". In ideal conditions bacteria can split every 20 minutes and a year is enough time to make that a crap load. Sure there is a growth curve that start off slow as they adapt to the environment, but once that has passed its a "all bets are off" on how quick it can multiply.
 
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