[PJ-Comix]

My first thought when reading that these scientists went missing was "The Thing." They open up a lake that has been beneath the surface for 20 million years and release a virus that...

Well, you know the rest of the story.

[AlexW]

Yes...It does sound pretty freaky.
Keep us posted, as I have not heard anything about it.

[LRS]

Hmm. Let's consider all the possibilities: “The Thing”, secret hidden Nazis, dinosaurs, Alien vs. Predators, a giant walrus, (and others that I just forgot),

or,

bad weather on an unforgiving continent...

[alice_in_bubbaland]

“They open up a lake that has been beneath the surface for 20 million years and release a virus that...”

Yes that is a big fear among some scientists.

Some are thinking that the Russians are searching for rare earth minerals instead of Lake Vostok.

[mkjessup]

Just wait, they’ll find a latter day Nazi-created clone of Admiral Byrd who will shout “GO BACK!!!!” ;)

[thackney]

Lake Vostok is one of many subglacial antarctic lakes. It is just the biggest of them.

Their preliminary research results, to be published in the March 21 issue of the scientific journal Nature, reveal that although the lake is ancient, perhaps millions of years old, the waters of Lake Vostok are relatively young. Bell's paper demonstrates that over a period of 13,300 years, all of the water is removed by the overlying ice sheet and replaced from other sources. The Lake water captured by the moving ice sheet is deposited as layers of ice along Lake Vostok’s eastern shoreline. Exploring those ice layers is equivalent to exploring the lake itself.

Through radar soundings over Lake Vostok, Dr. Bell and her team determined that the ice formation in the southern half of Lake Vostok, holds buckling patterns frozen into the ice sheet as it flows over the lake. Following the trends of the buckled ice patterns, scientists were able to construct movement trajectories across the Lake. They then calculated the time it took ice to move from the west side of the Lake to the east–20,000 years over a distance of about 35 miles. By examining the ice flux out of the Lake, the team determined that every 13,300 years the ice sheet removes the equivalent of the entire volume of Lake Vostok.

As the ice sheet removes lake water like a continuous conveyor belt, lake waters must be replenished, either by melting of the ice sheet or by subglacial meltwater.

[Riley]

They’re Norwegians, Mac.

I don’t know what got them, but it’s weird and it’s pissed off.

[PeteB570]

65 tons of kerosene in the drill hole?

That doesn’t sound too earth friendly to me.

[Leroy S. Mort]

...scientists around the globe have been waiting with baited breath to see what the Russian's unearth this weekend.

Take a flamethrower to your copy writer, Fox. It's "bated" and "Russians".

[Rummyfan]

Whatever they found, I hope they didn't put an electric blanket on it!

[RetroSexual]

I wouldn't worry about them. They'll get in touch when they run out of beer and pickled eggs.

[jetson]

Ancient alien fish bait!

[Tijeras_Slim]

increasingly anxious U.S. colleagues --

Not from Miskatonic University I hope....

[Dead Corpse]

More victims of the last remnants of the previous ice age. This is how dangerous global cooling is.

Something MUST be done before the entire planet plunges back into an endless winter!

[Vinnie]

"So in order to keep the hole from squeezing shut, they put a fluid in the drill called kerosene. Kerosene also grows bacteria, and there's about 65 tons of kerosene in that hole. It would be a disaster if that kerosene contaminated this pristine lake."

Unbelievable!
They're going to destroy this lake. All in the name of.. science.
And to what end? What knowledge do we need from this venture?

Leave it alone. Pump the kerosene out and go home.

[dfwgator]

n the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Russian scientists seeking Lake Vostok lost in frozen 'Land of the Lost'?