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Lake Vostok Reached
First time accepted submitter Cyberax writes "After 30 years of drilling and weeks of media attention the Antarctic underground lake Vostok has been reached by Russian scientists (translated article). Deep drilling in the vicinity of Vostok Station in Antarctica began in the 1970s, when the existence of the reservoir was not yet known. Scientists are beginning paleoclimatic studies and further exploration of the lake will continue in 2013-2014."
Expecting a lone husky to be seen escaping the facility in 2 days time.
It turns out that the microbiological conditions of ancient lake Vostok are strikingly similar to those of early 21st century drilling mud.
The timeline altering implications of this discovery will keep scientists busy for decades!
or whatever monster is lurking down there... well at least according to the movies I have seen :p
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
According to the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095193/Lake-Vostok-Russian-scientists-drilling-alien-Antarctic-lake-buried-20m-years.html) this morning, the Russian team has been out of contact for a week. An American scientist says they're probably just busy. Busy incubating aliens, more likely.
Awaiting the first youtube videos...
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Suddenly, deadly bacteria/frozen alien/frozen robotic alien/frozen goo-like mind control alien.
and how so few people/countries seem to be taking lifestyle-changing action against it, they wasted 30 years when in a few years or so, they might have the ice melt enough for them to reach the lake by just tapping on a thin sheet of it with the back of a pencil...
Did they find the Stargate yet? or the weapons platform?
13,100 feet to the lake.
Been digging since 1974. That's 344 feet a year, or a foot per day. Hell, *I* could have dug quicker than that!
Or maybe they just had lots of problems, costs, setbacks, etc. associated with a 13,000 foot-long drill through a substance that nobody has ever drilled 13,000 down through?
Bruce Willis could have drilled it in a matter of hours.
Making sure they don't contaminate the lake when they break through is a big big one.
Also conditions to drill in are variable, and when you're not actively drilling it will freeze back up.
This ain't no latrine 6 feet down 30 feet from camp they're making.
Only to find Chuck Norris waiting for him at the bottom.
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Actually, drilling in earnest was suspended until 2005, when it finally resumed. RTFA.
How do we know this lake isn't connected to an underground river that could easily wash modern biology in and out?
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
13,100 feet to the lake.
Been digging since 1974. That's 344 feet a year, or a foot per day. Hell, *I* could have dug quicker than that!
Or maybe they just had lots of problems, costs, setbacks, etc. associated with a 13,000 foot-long drill through a substance that nobody has ever drilled 13,000 down through?
It's also in the middle of the Antarctic, just about, and almost 900 miles from the Scott-Amundsen base at the South Pole. It's where the coldest temperature on earth has been measured, a whopping -128F (-89C). I'd love to see anyone dig a foot *that* day! :)
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
>> 13,100 feet to the lake. Been digging since 1974. That's
344 feet a year, or a foot per day.
Wow, I didn't think there were any iceholes bigger than my brother-in-law.
13,100 feet to the lake.
Wow, I never realized just how much ice is down there. Apparently it can reach up to 3 miles in thickness.
That's as high as any of the Rocky Mountains in the US and has 200' of global sea level tied up in it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How do you keep a hole 13,100 ft deep melted when the average temperature in summer is -30C (-22F), and in winter -65C (-85F)?
The warmest it ever gets is about -12C (10F) - that's a record by the way, the warmest ever measured at Vostok station.
It's not exactly a resort, you know:
The warmest recorded temperature at Vostok is -12.2 C (10.0 F), which occurred on 11 January 2002.[10]
The coldest month was August 1987 with a mean temperature of -75.4 C (-103.7 F) and the warmest month was December 1989 with mean of -28 C (-18 F).[9]
In addition to the extremely cold temperatures, other factors make Vostok one of the most difficult places on Earth for human habitation:
* An almost complete lack of moisture in the air.
* An average windspeed of 5 m/s (18 km/h) (11 mph), sometimes rising to as high as 27 m/s (97 km/h)(60 mph).
* An acute lack of oxygen because of its high altitude at 3,488 meters (11,444 ft).
* A higher ionization of the air.
* A polar night that lasts approximately 130 days, from mid April to late August,[13] including 80 continuous days of civil polar night (i.e. too dark to read, during which the Sun is over 6 degrees below the horizon.)
(source wikipedia)
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
The difference is that this time, for once, they don't want to nuke it!
They almost reached the lake in 1998 ...stopped to find a way of drilling without contaminating
Try this :
Go to the top of Rees Peak in the Rockies near Flagstaff, Arizona ...and see how quickly you can drill ...
Arrange the temperature to never get above -10C and go down to -80C
Do not get supplied regularly, and not at all in Winter
Strip all the moisture from the air
Increase the Wind speed so that it always blows at a minimum of 10mph and often goes up to 60mph
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
...and they started drilling at 11,444ft above sea level so the lake is actually 1,656ft below sea level.....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Why would he move to Antarctica? Is it warmer there than Dearborn, Michigan?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
They were using kerosene originally to keep it from freezing. I do not believe the ice temperature is as cold as the ambient air either. Snow is a decent insulator. Ice maybe not so much though. The permafrost in the Arctic does not extend down 13000 feet (although it is not pure water). There must be some radiant heat from the earth. Generally temperatures increase 3 degrees C for every 100 meters deep.
How long until we get Vostok(tm) bottled water in the grocery store?
It's February, so... maybe?
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The lake is AT seas level, but the top 1656ft are frozen. They were finding things in the top layer of ice, but werent sure if they had already contaminated it. SO they stopped drilling until a new system was in place. IIRC they had found some life forms in the top layer of ice already when they stopped drilling.
#include bier;
Well, they were keeping the well thawed using kerosene, which is lighter than ice and water, so presumably the weight of the ice sheet would force the water up the well, pushing out the kerosene until it reaches equilibrium, which would be somewhere beneath the surface of the ice sheet. Not sure exactly at what depth that would be. I'll let somebody else do the math.
Dissolved gases could certainly come out of solution as the column of water rises up the well. There have also bee suggestions that the water is supercooled and prevented from freezing only due to the high pressures involved. If so, then it would freeze as it rises and probably wouldn't make it all that far up the well before freezing solid.
You certainly saw a different version of "Earnest goes to Jail" than my kids did.
With all the digging, I'm sure you'd stay warm enough.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
These some really get around these days.
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I'm wondering what would happen if the combined effects of being under pressure (4 kms of ice) and low temperature would make this the worlds largest beer bottle experiment?
It would be tragic, yet somewhat hilarious at the same time.
Bruce Willis would have ridden down a hole in the ice on the back of an ICBM screaming "yippee-kay-aye, motherfuckers!"
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Duh, if it was that cold, you'd dig faster so that you kept warm.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Couldn't they have drilled in sideways and missed out drilling through all that ice on top?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There's no consideration of permafrost since they haven't hit the ground yet, and they don't plan to do so. They're drilling through the miles of ice laying on top of the lake. The ground is under the lake, which is under the ice. Radiant heat doesn't have any effect on this operation since, again, they're not drilling through ground.
Virg