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Antarctic Subglacial Lakes May Not be Isolated
core plexus writes "Plans to drill deep beneath the frozen wastes of the Antarctic, to investigate subglacial lakes where ancient life is thought to exist, may have to be reviewed following a discovery by a British team. In a Letter to Nature they report that rivers the size of the Thames have been discovered which are moving water hundreds of miles under the ice. The finding challenges the widely held assumption that the lakes evolved in isolated conditions for several millions years and thus may support microbial life that has evolved 'independently'. It has been suggested that if microbes exist in the lakes, they could function in the same way as those in the subsurface ocean of Jupiter's moon Europa or within subsurface water pockets on Mars."
Frosty Lake Pist!
Water dissolving, and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean
Letting the days go by, letting the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.
Perhaps this is an oblique reference to an SF novel?
Is this a mistake; I thought the ice sheet was only a couple of kilometers thick. Hundreds of miles would be through the earth's crust, surely?
Or several, perhaps. The Europa reference would be Arthur Clarke. The Mars reference would be Kim Stanley Robinson.
Either way, neither of these things is science fact.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Its moving water hundreds of miles under the ice in the same way a normal river moves water hundreds of miles.
40,000 Leagues Under The Sea wasn't about diving deep, it was about going far.
...thanks!
"40,000 Leagues under the Sea", or "There and Back Again".
:)]
[I think you mean 20,000
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I guess you could say that is a big bummer, but drilling down there would still be interesting. I'm sure they would find all kinds of interesting life there.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Ice works in mysterious ways, but not that mysterious. Microscopic fractures in the ice, at any point, can foster channels for warmer water to, not only seep in to, but begin to flow freely once more ice is meleted away by the influx of new(er) unfrozen water.
As the Earth's outer temperature continues to rise over the coming decades, we'll be seeing more of the 'cracked ice-cube effect'. The same affect that we see in glasses of water when we drop ice cubes in it. The warmer water causes the ice to expand at a rate which then causes fractures. Within minutes, and on a much smaller scale, those cracks begin to fill with the warmer water and, before long, those cracks have turned in to the lines which define the new separation from adjoined pieces of ice.
This is how glaciers come apart and start floating freely.
Yes. It's happening.
I've always been fascinated with the great subglacial lakes. The residence time of the water is about a million years. Now that's some stale water. It's also under enormous pressure, and contains 50x as much oxygen as a typical freshwater lake. More can be read here.
Forget the microbes; I'm worried about the shoggoths!
What is meant by that is that IF there is life on those places, it may function in similar ways, pressumably in relation to energy needs. Analyzing any life found in these subglacial lakes will give us clues as to what to look for when trying to find whether or not there is life on other planets/moons/random cosmological object.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
...although in a fit of pedantry, it is actually impossible to distinguish between these two using merely "logic", you need real world "knowledge" to manage it.
Not that I am a computer of any sort.
Does that question interest you? Please go on.
69,046.7669 miles
so hang on. if these lakes aren't as isolated as we previously thought, whats to say that they are isolated at all? i mean they could be being fed from the oceans somewhere, right? and if they are, doesn't this mean that there will be nothing new there to find?