A Russian team achieves a world first as they reach a subterranean lake
in the Antarctic whilst fighting off competition from the U.S and the
U.K; but the race isn’t over yet.
Lake Vostok, one of the world’s
largest lakes, lies under 4km of ice and measures 250km long and up to
50km wide. It has been hidden from the rest of the world for millions of
years; until now.
Scientists speculate about the conditions in the
lake and whether they are compatible with life. If life forms are found,
they are expected to be unique microbes that could improve our
understanding of the threshold of life on our own Planet as well as
implications for life on other worlds.
"This will give us the
possibility to biologically evaluate the evolution of living
organisms... because those organisms spent a long time without contact
with the atmosphere, without sunlight," says Valery Lukin, from Russia's
Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in St Petersburg.
On the surface all food chains are supported by Photosynthesis, the
process that produces energy from sunlight. But there is no light under
4km of ice; animals, however, at the deep see vents also survive without
sunlight. Here the food chain is supported by organisms called
Chemoautotrophs that, instead of sunlight, produce energy by using
molecules like methane or hydrogen sulphide.
The drilling ceased on
the 5th February and most of the team have now left before the arrival
of the Antarctic winter. The temperatures are freezing at the isolated
Vostok station where the Russian scientists have been working. The
lowest ever recorded temperatures on earth where recorded here, reaching
lows of -89 degrees Celsius in 1983.
Vostok station, situated above
Lake Vostok, is one of the remotest places on the earth. Located near
the south Geometric pole, at the centre of the East Antarctic ice sheet;
before using aeroplanes, it used to take an agonising month long
journey by truck from the cost, almost 1400km away, for the station to
receive supplies.
The finding of the lake occurred in the early
1960’s when Soviet Antarctic Expedition pilots observed an extremely
flat area near the ice. Conformation came later in the early 1970’s when
British scientists performed ice-penetrating radar surveys identifying
liquid water. It was complete luck that the Station, having been
established in 1957, was built near the site. A fortunate accident meant
drilling could begin without too much difficulty.
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