Scientists in Russia are in a race to drill through 4,000 meters of Antarctic ice sheet to reach a sub-glacial lake that has not seen the light of day for 15 million years:
With only about 50m left to drill, time is running out for the Russian scientists hoping to drill into Vostok – the world’s most enigmatic lake.
Vostok is a sub-glacial lake in Antarctica, hidden some 4,000m (13,000ft) beneath the ice sheet.
With the Antarctic summer almost over, temperatures will soon begin to plummet; they can go as low as -80C.
Scientists will leave the remote base on 6 February, when conditions are still mild enough for a plane to land.
The team has been drilling non-stop for weeks.
“It’s like working on an alien planet where no one has been before,” Valery Lukin, the deputy head of Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in St Petersburg, which oversees the project, told BBC News.
“We don’t know what awaits us down there,” he said, adding that personnel at the station have been working shifts, drilling 24 hours a day.
Have these guys never seen a John Carpenter movie?
Are they find and release a zombie virus?
I meant “Or they find” and release a zombie virus.
This is what happens when your G/f is senselessly nagging you about unimportant stuff and trying to type…..LOL
Sooo they are looking for water? Mkay.
Skip … Either water, or “proof of global warming” or more snail darters for the EPA to use to make trouble…
Marianne
Well, here in my hometown, Hollywood unleashed ancient pirahnas upon scantily clad porn-type starletts using tectonics and modern 3D technology. Hopefully, if something does go horribly wrong for the Ruskies, the fury unleashed won’t be too awful. Perhaps something along the lines of Daryl Hannah emerging from the surf sans fin? One can only hope.
Or they release a school of Carcharocles Megalodons….lol
You subscribe to the theory that Megalodon was more closely related to the Mako, rather than being a Big Honking White, hence the Carcharocles rather than Carcharodon?
I just picked Carcharocles classification of the Meg, since it could be plausible.
but It very well could be more of a close relative to the Great white shark then it is to the Mako.. Or it could be the ancestor of both the Mako and Great White. I will keep an open mind on it. I do know what the experts say, that its most likely died out millions or 10 thousand years ago.
but I just wonder if any are still alive?
Lake Superior is full of them, it’s the only thing that keeps the Lake Superior Sperm Whales and the Great Walleyed Whales from overrunning the place.
Very bad reporting.
Nowhere in the article did the reporter mention the nature of the contaminant.
When the drilling was proceeding over the years, they used a mixture of freon and aviation fuel to keep the borehole from freezing shut. The column of this antifreeze fluid weighs 60 tons.
Imagine what that would do to the pristine waters that they wish to sample when they break through to the liquid.
float on top of it?
First thing I thought of, Edward–kind of defeats the whole purpose of the exercise, doesn’t it?
So, the big discovery will be what? That somebody peed in the lake before it froze over? That every sinkhole on the continent will implode, causing the lake’s water to come gushing out of the bore hole? That’ll be quite some spout. Eh?
” temperatures will soon begin to plummet; they can go as low as -80 C …”
What are they complaining about?? That sounds like conditions in New England for the past month…..COLD, COLD and SNOW….lots of both and no sign of it ending…..
Oh yeah, this just in – AL GORE is STILL a F&*king liar……..sorry about that, just had to vent for a second
You’re talking about weather and Al Bore talks about climate, which tells us what the weath…er, forget it.
Send Scully and Mulder to oversee the operation…
Can’t they hear the ominous music playing in the background? Stop drilling before you release the Creature we know is waiting!!!