Only about 100 feet left to drill on Lake Vostok

[Bullion_Bob]

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/03/133441327/deep-below-antarctic-ice-lake-may-soon-see-light

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/170956main_SubglacialLakesVostok_lg.jpg

"Russian scientists are on the verge of punching a hole into a vast Antarctic lake that's buried under more than two miles of ice.

If the Russians break through, they may tap into and disturb a primitive and pristine ecosystem that has been untouched for millions of years.

Lake Vostok is actually the third largest lake in the world, measured by the amount of water it holds. And if you're surprised to learn that there could be a vast pool of liquid water under two miles of ice, so were the Soviets.

In fact, they had no idea there was a lake there when they built their Vostok camp more than 50 years ago. Robin Bell, a professor of marine geology and geophysics at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, says the Soviets picked the spot because it was the Earth's magnetic South Pole.

"The Russians went to the magnetic South Pole in 1958 because they missed the race to the rotational South Pole," Bell says. The U.S. claimed that prime real estate.

But it turns out the south magnetic pole isn't fixed in one place — in fact, it wandered off from Camp Vostok, leaving the Soviet base seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Discovering The Lake

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2335/4514670771_83c221788e_z.jpg

Undaunted, the Russians drilled down through the ice at their feet to sample tiny air bubbles trapped inside. In the early 1990s, they re-created a history of the Earth's atmosphere throughout the past 400,000 years — a record of our planet's air during the past four ice ages.

"When they got to the bottom [of the 2.2-mile-deep hole] they suddenly found this ice that didn't seem to be the same," Bell says. They found giant crystals, it was a different acidity, and there were no gas bubbles in it.

The scientists realized that this odd layer of ice was actually from the roof of an enormous lake, buried directly beneath them.

"And right about then, the satellite imagery [surveying Antarctica] came out, and you could see this area the size of New Jersey was dead flat," Bell says. That showed there was a giant lake beneath Camp Vostok."

http://www.acrosstheplanet.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/LakeVostok-Location.jpg

[vacuum]

But getting a sample is no simple matter — it took Russian scientists more than a decade to come up with an acceptable plan for drilling into the lake without disturbing it, and they started drilling down again in early January.

Jim Barnes has been watching this process closely, as head of a nongovernmental organization called the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.

"Well, to be perfectly honest, we're not very happy about it," he says.

One major concern is the Russians have filled the hole they're drilling with more than 14,000 gallons of kerosene and Freon to prevent it from freezing shut. The Russians have engineered their system so that when they break through into the lake, water pressure from below is supposed to push the drilling fluids up the hole, rather than letting them pour into the lake and contaminate it.
Yea, I see a small potential source of contamination with that method.

[Ponce]

Why not use steam?.......not only will the pipes not freeze but it just might let the drilling go faster.....steam created with rain water.

[Horn]

Why not use steam?.......not only will the pipes not freeze but it just might let the drilling go faster.....steam created with rain water.


Rain water? hmmm.

[Serpo]

Only to find this............

[Ponce]

Serpo? I do hope that monster is not a tp eating one.......

[Sparky]

What is the significance of this?

[Ares]

What is the significance of this?


From a purely scientific perspective, pretty significant. They've drilled through 2 miles of ice, which they believe is how thick the ice is on Europa and Io. They just need to refine it and try it on one of those 2 moons.

[chad]

What is the significance of this?


they're expecting to find entirely new forms of life, aliens, if you will. the bacteria + any life it there has been sealed off from the world since prehistoric times.

[mike88]

the lake could be 100 proof vodka left by the lemurian humans when they had to flee their tropical paradise turned arctic wasteland.......................

[ximmy]

I hope they find a new yummy flavored substance...

[keehah]

What is the significance of this?


TPTB want to contaminate the entire planet.

[Bullion_Bob]

Why not use steam?.......not only will the pipes not freeze but it just might let the drilling go faster.....steam created with rain water.


The big thing is not introducing anything organic into the mix.

This is more or less a search for lifeforms.

[Heimdhal]

OMG......they just may.....



RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

http://www.whiskeyandbeans.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Perseus_vs__the_Kraken_by_VegasMike-1024x579.jpg

[Gangsta99]

Release some sort of super virus that will wipe out 99% of humanity except for the elite and ruling classes.

[joboo]

"As of 13 January, they had reached a depth of 3737.5 meters, about 15 meters away from liquid water. With three teams drilling around the clock and making progress at an average of 2 meters per day.

Priscu says they're on track to break through within the week. "This is an epic event. I really wish them luck," he says. "I wish I was out there with them."

http://static.atlasobscura.netdna-cdn.com/images/place/lake-vostok.2309.large_slideshow.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APaBqRp27zU

[DMac]

This is how my zombie apocalypse book begins :D

[vacuum]

Thank goodness they aren't drilling a big hole with a bunch of kerosene in it. Much better to send down a probe like they're talking about.

However, I'm assuming it's going to be full of radioactive material to provide the heat to melt it's way down? They didn't mention how they were going to do it exactly...

[vacuum]

Thank goodness they aren't drilling a big hole with a bunch of kerosene in it. Much better to send down a probe like they're talking about.

However, I'm assuming it's going to be full of radioactive material to provide the heat to melt it's way down? They didn't mention how they were going to do it exactly...
Guess they wanted to win the race, and drilled through anyway:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095193/Lake-Vostok-Russian-scientists-confirm-triumph-drilling-successful-Antarctica.html

[Glass]

I thought this was really interesting from your link vacuum.


Earlier this week state-run news agency in Russia claimed that an extraordinary cache of Hitler's archives may be buried in a secret Nazi ice bunker near the spot where yesterday's breakthrough was made.

‘It is thought that towards the end of the Second World War, the Nazis moved to the South Pole and started constructing a base at Lake Vostok,’ claimed RIA Novosti, the Russian state news agency.

It cited Admiral Karl Dontiz in 1943 saying ‘Germany's submarine fleet is proud that it created an unassailable fortress for the Fuehrer on the other end of the world’, in Antarctica.

According to German naval archives, months after the Nazis surrendered to the Allies in April 1945, a U-530 submarine arrived at the South Pole from the Port of Kiel.

The crew are rumoured to have constructed a still undiscovered ice cave ‘and supposedly stored several boxes of relics from the Third Reich, including Hitler's secret files’.

A later claim was that a U-977 submarine delivered remains of Hitler and Eva Braun to Antarctica in the hope they could be cloned from their DNA. The submariners then went to Argentina to surrender, it was claimed.

[JohnQPublic]

Is Geraldo Rivera going to be there when they punch through? :D

[Neuro]

Odd though they had a hundred feet left last year, at this time, and the a few weeks ago they had 50 feet left, and then a few days later they cracked through...

Any mammoths in the sample yet?

[joboo]

'We raised 40 liters of water': Details of Lake Vostok drill success

http://rt.com/news/water-russia-vostok-antarctica-819/

http://rt.com/files/news/water-russia-vostok-antarctica-819/success-40-drill-liters.n.jpg
Jubilant Russian scientists are carrying home 40 liters of relic water, which waited for them, unblemished, in the Antarctic, long before the man first trod the Earth. Lake Vostok’s treasury is ready to reveal its millions-year-old secrets.

*Forget the world’s economic crisis and civil war in Syria: the severe, majestic Antarctic is opening up its eternal fridge to the mankind. Scientists at Vostok Antarctic research station – drilling towards the largest freshwater tank, corked for 20 million years in eastern Antarctica – secured several dozen liters of prehistoric water.

Drilling through over 3,700 meters of quality ice (http://rt.com/news/vostok-lake-drilling-scientists-701/) is no fun, especially if you do not want to contaminate anything lying underneath. The international community has been grinding into the glacier for 30 years. Rival Western expeditions have been using the hot-water drilling method – boiling the ice – which is slower but cleaner.

On February 4, it seemed to finally give way, when the drilling machine plunged into water! The ice taken to the surface by the drill was glazed in a way only water could do. The machine also brought back 40 liters of water – frozen, naturally, given the temperature in the crack never goes higher than -55 Centigrade and all the 3766 meters it had to travel up.

But the next plunge proved the work was not yet over.

The following day, drilling liquid gave a sudden massive splash – some 1,500 liters of kerosene and Freon poured into special containers. The scientists first held their breaths, skipping several heartbeats. But there was no doubt any more: Vostok had opened up (http://rt.com/news/antarctic-million-secrets-lake-583/)!

The lake water, rising up to 40 meters due to under-pressure in the crack, pushed the drilling liquid back onto the surface.

It had cost the team 3.3 additional meters of drilling.

Relics of ancient life, clues to climate change, the whole history of planet Earth – scientists have everything to look for in the lake (http://rt.com/news/vostok-lake-drill-process-703/). The biggest closed ecosystem ever found, Vostok is as alien as the lakes on Jupiter's moon Europa.

But carving a threshold to this science treasury is not the only triumph for Russian scientists. Their technology to drill into the pristine waters and preserve them immaculate has proved to be efficient.

This is the reason the project halted in 1998 just 130 meters from the lake’s surface and did not resume till 2005: the world community feared contamination. Russian technology, involving the kerosene-Freon drilling liquid, helped to avoid that.

Now the scientists are heading home. The water they collected from the lens just over the lake is traveling with them in special sterile containers.

The team will come back to the station in a while to take samples of Vostok water, which is believed to be “twice as pure as double-distilled water.” They say their success is the best present to Russia celebrating Day of Science on February 8.