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Drilling Begins At Lake Hidden Beneath Antarctic

Posted by timothy on from the new-places-to-advertise dept.

New submitter stonetony writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "A team of 12 scientists and engineers has begun work at remote Lake Ellsworth. They are using a high-pressure hose and sterilised water at near boiling point to blast a passage through more than two miles of ice. The aim is to analyse ice waters isolated for up to 500,000 years. The team of 12 scientists and engineers is using sterilised water at near boiling point to blast a passage through the ice to waters isolated for up to half a million years. The process of opening a bore-hole is expected to last five days and will be followed by a rapid sampling operation before the ice refreezes."

3 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Questions from the summary by orson_of_fort_worth · · Score: 5, Funny

    The summary wasn't clear so my questions are: Is the water sterilized? How hot is the water in the hose? How long has the lake water been isolated? Also, Is the water sterilized? How hot is the water in the hose? How long has the lake water been isolated?

  2. Re:How are they doing this... by Ambiguous+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're all missing the point that they're using water near 100C to bore through ice to get at water that's been isolated for as much as 500 millennia.

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    Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
  3. Re:How are they doing this... by Ambiguous+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let it be known that I was actually moderated "-1 Redundant" on this. The irony is palpable.

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    Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.