By Rebecca Boyle Posted 02.06.2012 at 12:09 pm 8 Comments

Lake Vostok's Location The location of Lake Vostok within Antarctica NASA

The Russian scientists drilling into ancient buried Antarctic Lake Vostok have reached their destination, the Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported today. The team is apparently alive and well despite a week of suspicious radio silence, but more details are to come about what they’ve found buried under two miles of ice.

“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake,” the source reportedly said in a story posted Monday, Feb. 6.

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Science, Rebecca Boyle, antarctic ice, antarctica, drills, ice, lake vostok, lakes, Russian, russian scientist, vostok, water drill
If true, this is a feat several decades in the making. Russian scientists have been attempting to drill into Antarctic ice since the 1970s, and they discovered Lake Vostok in 1996. In 1998, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which protects the frozen continent, forced them to stop drilling until environmental concerns could be addressed. They started up again last winter (the austral summer) but had to cut and run just 30 meters from the lake source, as the Antarctic winter bore down.

Last week we thought that might happen again — if anyone could even hail the scientists — because conditions are getting worse, but no one heard from the team in several days. Then on Monday, the Russian news agency announced the team's success.

Lake Vostok has been buried for 14 million years and contains high oxygen and nitrogen levels, which could cause the lake water to fizz like a shaken soda can when breached. But scientists want to reach it because it could hold weird forms of life that survive in deep cold and with no sun, which could have implications for alien life on Europa, Enceladus or other icy celestial bodies.

[via Slashdot]

8 Comments

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fletch
02/06/12 at 12:26 pm

Popsci, stop it!
I've been with you a while now and I can't get enough of the geekery and epic science feats... BUT... stop with the sensationalism!
We don't need it. We're old enough and intelligent enough to understand. the science itself is enough to keep us interested. It's insulting when you think you have to embellish a story to keep us reading. We're not children!

"The team is apparently alive and well despite a week of suspicious radio silence"

The source of this sensationalism came from an email to Fox News from John Priscu. It read “No word from the ice for 5 days,”.

Now, any decent science magazine with any respect for its readers might have resisted the urge to be silly and even seen this as a non-issue, deciding not to print it.

The real kick-in-the-teeth for those publications of the red-banner type, came in the form of his follow up email:
“I can assure you that they are not lost or out of contact,” he wrote in an email. “I never said the Russians were lost.”

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nandrews73
02/06/12 at 12:50 pm

I read the article last week about the team being out of contact with their American colleagues. I'm glad they are well. Pretty excited to find out about their discoveries. It would have been nice to have some live footage of the final stages of drilling.

Did the lake erupt?

Love, Peace & Soul

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gizmowiz
02/06/12 at 12:57 pm

That wouldn't have been a pretty site if the 'fizzing' you spoke of really happened and the entire 2 mile ice cap was blown off the lake! Bye bye Russians and hello sea level rise.

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Space
02/06/12 at 1:48 pm

As the Russian poke their way to the bottom, do some discovering and testing of what they find, then keeping their findings initially to themselves and not speaking to the USA for the last few days, may not be science, but could be just good old fashion Political Science.....

..........................................
See life in all its beautiful colors, and
from different perspectives too!

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rlb2
02/06/12 at 2:36 pm

This should be big news around the world because if life is found down there it will change the way we look at habitable zones and finding life within our own solar system.

According to what I read thus far they have claimed to found bacteria in the core samples before they broke though the ice.

Ron Bennett

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muhaddib
02/06/12 at 3:50 pm

Well, it's called Popular Science not Facts Only Science. If it is sometimes too much, do not read it! You have the power and the choice to read something more concrete, or drier version.

On the other hand: Do not let out those people! It takes a few days for the aliens to incubate them, they come out, and will start spreading the spores! :D

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fletch
02/06/12 at 3:52 pm

@rlb2 It's not exciting yet. They are leaving the water to rise through the hole and then freeze over. They'll examine the newly frozen ice in Antarctica's next summer season.



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