Lake Vostok update: Buried lake in Antarctica reached by Russian scientists, reports say

By Angel Cuala on Feb 8, 2012 in Environment, Russia, Science, World • No comments

A buried lake in Antarctica called Lake Vostok was said to have been reached by Russian scientists after decades of drilling, which notably could reveal new forms of life and show how life evolved before the ice age.

Lake-Vostok-buried-lake-Antarctica-Russian-scientists

Lake Vostok, spied by satellite
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center -
Scientific Visualization Studio; Canadian Space
Agency; and RADARSAT International Inc.

As reported at RIA Novosti, a Russian news site on Monday, February 6, 2012, a scientific source told them that local scientists have finally drilled through Lake Vostok, the so-called buried lake, notably with conditions similar to that on Mars and Jupiter‘s moon Europa.

According to the report, Lake Vostok, which is the largest of Antarctica‘s buried lakes and is also being considered as one of the largest lakes in the world, has not been reached for the past 20 million years.

“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake,” the source said was quoted on the report, with the said Antarctica hidden lakes were said to have been discovered in the 1990s.

Apparently, the discovery were said to have attracted the interest of among scientists all over the world and some of them think the covering ice cap on top and at the edges have created a hydrostatic seal with the surface, thus preventing anything from getting inside and the lake water from escaping.

On the other hand, Live Science emphasized that there are still no official news from Russia‘s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute and noted that Lake Vostok have been buried beneath 2 miles (3.7 kilometers) of ice.

Nevertheless, the paper said that if the reports were true, the Russian scientists will be forced to wait until next season to take water samplings from the buried lake since their type of drilling used can only bring back ice and not liquid water.

Meanwhile, the report is being thought of reviving the old theory that Nazis built a secret base at Lake Vostok in the 1930s, and that later, the remains of Adolf Hilter and Eva Braun‘s remains were delivered by submarine U-977 to Antarctica for cloning purposes.