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| credit: Nature.com |
Does ancient Lake Vostok in Antarctica contain dead Nazis or not? That question and many other much more scientifically relevant could be answered now Russian scientists have reached the lake's surface. It has taken 14 years of drilling to reach a depth of 3,768 meters and reportedly the surface of the sub-glacial lake. The head of the Russian drilling program confirmed the
wire reports the lake was penetrated on 5 Feburary. The scientific world waits results with great interest because the ancient lake, buried under the ice cap, has been biologically isolated for 15 million years. Any creatures found living in the water may be unknown to science and genetically unique. In the summer of 2012-13 scientists hope to probe the depths of the 35 million year old lake with robots to collect water samples from depth and lake bed sediments. Now, the drilling station has been closed down for the long and severe Antarctic winter where temperatures have plunged to minus 45℉ and reached a record minus 129℉ in 1983.
Lake Vostok is about the size of Lake Ontario, 169 miles by 30 miles and is considered the largest of the sub-glacial lakes. Its waters are devoid of light but probably super-saturated with oxygen. It may harbor extremophilic microbes or be completely sterile. Some interested scientists are concerned with contamination of the lake water by the drilling and sample recovery operations in either case. Russia's Antarctic Research Institute submitted a final environmental evaluation on the project which was approved by the Russian government and the Antarctic Treaty's environmental protection committee. Lake Vostok may offer a terrestrial analog of exoseas that are thought to exist on moons of Jupiter (Europa and Ganymede) and Saturn.
