Russian scientists have drilled into an Antarctic lake that has been sealed off from the rest of the world for about 15 million years. Sampling the waters of Lake Vostok could reveal clues about the evolution of life on Earth and may yield entirely unknown forms of life. According to the Russian newswire RIA Novosti, scientists from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersburg drilled through the 3,768 metres of ice above Lake Vostok to reach the surface of the lake on Sunday.
Lake Vostok is the largest of hundreds of lakes that sit under the thick layer of ice on the Antarctic continent. Russian scientists had been planning to drill through the ice to the lake for several decades, but the scheme was only recently approved by the relevant international bodies. Their drilling started in the first few days of this year.
In recent decades, scientists have found bacteria and other single-celled organisms that have evolved to live in conditions in which other life forms would struggle to survive, such as darkness or extreme temperatures or salinity. The scientists believe that Lake Vostok might be a haven for so-called "extremophiles". They want to take samples of the water to examine any such creatures, which will have lived in frigid waters for millions of years and followed a distinct evolutionary path to that of the rest of life on Earth.
Even though the Russian team has made it through the ice this week, it will not be able to take samples of the Vostock water until later in the year, when the Antarctic winter is over.
British scientists are also engaged in a project to drill to a sub-glacial lake on Antarctica. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey will use a hot-water drill to cut through the ice cap to Lake Ellsworth, on the western Antarctic ice sheet, later this year. The team installed its equipment in November last year and will begin drilling in the weeks before Christmas.
