Posted on 02/05/2011 11:48:03 AM PST by pillut48
Russian scientists are set to pierce through Antarcticas frozen surface to reveal the secrets of an icebound lake that has been sealed deep there for the past 15 million years.
Alexei Turkeyev, head of the Russian polar Vostok Station, told Reuters by satellite phone that scientists have only a bit left to go. His team has been drilling for weeks in a race to reach the lake -- buried 12,000 feet beneath the polar ice cap -- before the end of the brief Antarctic summer.
With the quickly returning onset of winter, scientists will be forced to leave on the last flight out on February 6. It's minus 40 (Celsius/Fahrenheit) outside, said Turkeyev. But whatever, we're working. We're feeling good. There's only 5 meters left until we get to the lake so it'll all be very soon.
Scientists are hoping the lake will reveal new forms of life and show how life evolved may have evolved in the times before the ice age. The lake could also offer scientists a glimpse of what conditions exist for life in similar extremes on Mars and Jupiters moon Europa.
It's like exploring an alien planet where no one has been before. We don't know what we'll find, Valery Lukin of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in St Petersburg, which oversees the expedition, told Reuters.
(Excerpt) Read more at redorbit.com ...
Since this lake is located in Antarctica aren’t the scientists more likely to find Elder Things?
Exactly right. You get the prize.
I would like to keep that lake pristine, so we know exactly what existed there before the intrusion. I would also like to make sure what exists there is not threatened by contamination.
As others have mentioned, there may be a contamination factor for the outside world too.
Sorry can’t resist
” He’s dead Jim”
RADARSAT image of Lake Vostok |
In 1998, when they were within 100 meters of the lake, they decided to stop drilling, lest they contaminate the lake with the gunk they were using to keep the borehole from freezing over. Last November, they decided to try again, using newly developed methods that do not risk pollution.
What do we care? Ozero is openly admiring the Russians now — we wanna have Sputnik moments and build stuff and invent stuff.
Who cares that these scientists are pouring anti-freeze chemicals into the lake as they drill? We only demand that our president care about the environment (and the national debt and employment and gas prices) when he’s a Republican, so all systems go!
No bob, we don’t got to love them.
Most have no doubt that anything the ruskis do is far from pure science and more directly something to give them an edge over everyone else.
There is a meteorite deep beneath the icy surface that contains a fossil from outer space.
So how are you going to know what existed there before unless you intrude?
Contamination messes up the science. If they find something interesting in the lake water, it helps to be able to assume it's really from the lake and was not introduced by their own efforts to reach the lake. And the science is the point; it's not as if anybody's going to be drinking the water.
What possibly could someone have posted on this thread to have to be deleted?
(post #23)
At this point, don’t we merely have their word that they’ve “resolved” the contamination issue?
What if the lake is pressurized from all the tons of snow and ice above it? Is there any chance of a geyser effect when the drill breaks through the last of the ice?
Sorry if that sounds ignorant to any scientist types, but I’m seriously wondering about that.
Yeah, I always wonder what the deleted posts say, too. It would be cool if there was a function to “view at your own risk” for those FReepers that want to know.
Bring back #23!!!
They're the ones doing the investigation. Their scientific peers will have to judge whether they did it right.
The Vostok team pose with ice cores |
I sense a horror movie coming on.
and in the middle of its brief summer..........ain't no meltin' goin on there.
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