Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Antarctic Lake Actually Two in One

Posted by michael on from the double-your-pleasure dept.

Scoria writes "USA Today reports: Scientists have discovered that Lake Vostok, a liquid freshwater lake which has been isolated from the world beneath 4 km of ice for approximately 500,000 years, contains two separate basins. They believe that the basins, which are divided by a ridge that limits water exchange, may host individual ecosystems that are home to ancient microbes."

19 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Does anyone else find it amazing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That a liquid freshwater lake can survive that far underneath Antarctica? I would've imagined it to have either frozen, or at least be saltwater, which would enable it to stay liquid in low temperatures. If geothermal heat is responsible, then why isn't the ice around it melting, or is it just one of those finely balanced peculiarities of nature?

    1. Re:Does anyone else find it amazing... by BlueJay465 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As for the geothermal theory, if it was the cause of this under-ice lake, then the convection current would have eventually blended the two basins.

      I remain skeptical.

  2. Re:So... by wideBlueSkies · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually the water isn't half a million years old... it's much older than that. By a few billion years at least.

    It's only been in the fridge for half a million years.

    wbs.

    --
    Huh?
  3. Then you get it home... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ...only to find it really came from Sidcup.

  4. Maybe its pressure? by reality-bytes · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Perhaps it could be down to the pressure of 4km of ice causing sufficient heating at lower levels for freshwater to be liquid.

    But I'm no geologist (or physicist) ;)

    --
    Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
    1. Re:Maybe its pressure? by Aphrika · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It appears that pressure does play a part. There's some good information here which also points out that pressure has had the effect of super-saturating the water with oxygen.

      I remember reading a while back (I think it was in Wired?) that they had problems boring through the ice as the pressure closed the hole. The initial plan was to pump the hole full of oil to keep it open, although this plan was scrapped because of the environmental implications. Last I heard, they were toying with the idea of sealing a remote rover in the base of the hole, then having it break though into the lake. As long as the rover's sterilised, the integrity of the ecosystem - in theory - should be preserved.

    2. Re:Maybe its pressure? by kevlar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think that might be possible. The pressure of metal ice skates on the surface of the ice produces a thin layer of frozen temperature water. I guess if you have enough pressure , you could produce an entire lake of very cold, very pressurized water.

  5. Ice vs Deep Sea by powerpuffgirls · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it easier to deal with ice than venturing into deep sea? I have read that many interesting creatures are in deep sea where we cannot quite reach.

    Either way, I'm equally excited to know that something else we don't know might be within reach, pretty much like others being excited by aliens.

  6. Re:Europa testing by Pinkfud · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's already in the works. Don't you follow the Science Channel? :) Seriously, they are planning to test methods of drilling on Europa there. The problem is to get it done without introducing any microbes into the water, because then their findings would be contaminated and useless. So they're working very carefully on the design of the devices they're going to use.

    --
    The world is my oyster. That's why it's always in a stew.
  7. Re:Careful by Phoex · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Do these microbes have to have any sort of host? For all we (here at /.) know they are completely harmless things similar to green algae. In fact that would be the more likely situation.

    --
    00110100 00110010
  8. Re:Half a Million is LONG for a microbe. by toxic666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I fully agree with your comments. The oil fields have microbes that are hundreds of millions of years old, uniquely evolved to their environment and may have evolved from the microbes that were in the original, surficial organic muck.

    My original point was that /. editors tend to have a point of view that coincides with NASA funding requests based upon a search for life as justification. Describing a 500,000 year-old environment as "ancient" suggests something unique.

  9. Re:Careful by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1/10th's actually a fair number. Ranching Beef, for example is about 10% efficient. Every 1 lb steak you skip represents 10 lbs. of grain that could be available to feed people instead of cattle, IF we can work out ways to distribute it.

    --
    Who is John Cabal?
  10. 2 Miles of Ice? by kevlar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If there is 2 Miles of Ice below Antarctica, does that mean that the surface is at 10,000+ ft?

  11. Re:Define "Ancient" by dragons_flight · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually 500,000 years maybe a significant understatement. Antarctica has been continuously glaciated for the last ~40 million years. We know that the lake is at least 500,000 years old because that is roughly the age of the ice directly above it. However, as with all glaciers, the ice slowly creeps from the central domes where snow accumulates out the ocean where icebergs form and the edges melt. Hence, it is pretty certain that the ice above Vostok today is not the ice that was there when the lake first formed.

    This opens the possibility that the lake may have existed continuously under the ice for 20 or 30 million years. Till we crack her open and look inside it will be hard to say.

  12. Gulag Ice Lens by handy_vandal · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From the preface to The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhensitsyn:
    "In 1949 some friends and I came upon a noteworthy news item in Nature, a magazine of the Academy of Sciences. It reported in tiny type that in the course of excavations on the Kolyma River a subterranean ice lens had been discovered which was actually a frozen stream -- and in it were found frozen specimens of prehistoric fauna some tens of thousands of years old. Whether fish or salamander, these were preserved in so fresh a state, the scientific correspondent reported, that those present immediately broke open the ice encasing the specimens and devoured them with relish on the spot."
    Links
    --
    -kgj
  13. Re:Half a Million is LONG for a microbe. by mnmn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not excited about the microbes. The size of the lakes suggest some pretty bizarre fish could be found in the lake. Strange alien-looking freaky fish are found in other trenches (read: high pressure), and this place has been completely isolated. Are we too crazy to expect creatures bigger than people deep down there?

    The temperature might be a problem though.

    And so would our equipment contaminating the lake and killing off the fish, so we'd only find bodies of the awesome creatures.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  14. Re:Maybe by lonesome+phreak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Cthulhu sleeps under an island (Pohnpei) in the South Pacific. Off http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com:

    "Co-ordinates of S. Latitude 47 9, W. Longitude 126 43 have been stated by Lovecraft but never investigated. August Derleth used the co-ordinates of S. Latitude 49 51, W. Longitude 128 34 in his own writings. The latter also places it about a day's journey from Pohnpei, an actual island of the area, which consequently plays a central part in the Cthulhu Mythos."

    Also noted "The island is notable for the prevalence of the extreme form of color blindness. Maskun is a medical condition (also called achromatopsia) characterized by the inability to perceive any colors, a severe and rare form of color blindness. It is caused by the lack of any functioning cone cells in the retina; these are the light receptors responsible for color perception. It is endemic on Pohnpei and was described by Oliver Sacks in Island of the Colorblind. Sacks went there with a Dane who had maskun, and the book narrates his experiences on the island. Maskun is relatively rare in humans but often shows up in communities with small gene-pools.

    Strange stuff no doubt.

    --
    Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
  15. Going there soon by dargaud · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Here's a radar map of Lake Vostok showing the Vostok russian Station, along with other radar maps of Antarctica.

    I couldn't find an easier job, so I just signed up for the first winter over at Dome C on the high Antarctic Plateau, only 550km from Vostok. On the program of the fun will be: reaching ground level with a 3200m ice core (they are almost there), temperatures of -84C in winter and lots more. Unlike Vostok, Dome C doesn't have a lake underneath. I'll try to keep my site updated.

    --
    Non-Linux Penguins ?
  16. Re:Half a Million is LONG for a microbe. by Quirk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oil fields and microbes come from a theory held by a maverick scientist by the name of Thomas Gold. The gist of his argument ran as follows: "The presence of organic molecules in all petroleum deposits has long been taken as evidence for the biological origin of petroleum. Gold argued instead in his 1999 book The Deep Hot Biosphere that the organic molecules come from subterranean microbes that feed on petroleum deep in the Earth's crust. Gold's vision of a supply of oil and gas that is essentially inexhaustible drew intense criticism from petroleum geologists."

    --
    "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
    Cohen