International Space Mapping of Lake Vostok Overridden by NSA, page 2

Originally posted by David
Lake Vostok is located almost in the center of the Antarctic. It is almost as big as Lake Ontario. Mysterious is absolutely the right word to describe this huge body of water. Last summer in the Antarctic SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research flew 36, 4 hour missions over Lake Vostok. Every second instruments in the Twin Otter airplane measured gravitational attractions, radar readings, and 10 different measures on a magnetometer. They may have found more mysteries than they solved. [ed: details of the original story are on the Antarctic Sun.]

Probably the biggest mystery is evidence of a huge magnetic anomoly. Encompassing the Southwest corner of the lake, 65 X 46 miles there are indications that the geological structure changes beneath the lake. One quick theory is that this indicates a thinner crust in the surface of the continent. Another mystery is that ice core samples have proved that micro-organisms live 11,886 feet deep under the ice. That is over 2 miles down! If the ice core is drilled another 400 feet or so it will enter an pristine atmosphere sealed off for millions of years. Air samples can tell scientists a lot about our planets past. BTW, back to the ice core. Each year as the snow falls and melts and refreezes it forms a geological diary that scientist decode and read to tell them what was happening in the worlds atmosphere going backward in time at least 400,000 years. Back to Lake Vostok. Beneath the trapped atmosphere lies equally pristine water. Is there life there? If there is it makes one lake up and out to Europa the ice covered moon orbiting Jupiter. Don't bet against life. I think you will lose. Beneath the water is the bed of the lake. How was this huge lake formed? Sediment from the lake bed can provide the answers. And the deepest mystery (pun intended). Just what did cause that HUGE MAGNETIC ANOMALY.

From the same site as the previous article

I would agree, the numerous layers of ice trap air bubbles which gives you a yearly record of the changes in the atmosphere. I would also agree, the isolated environment in the lake would likely lead to a far different evolutionary direction for life.

The lifeforms theorized for Europa are modeled on life observed at deep ocean ridges. These are in the middle of the deep dark ocean, where sun never shines, and the water temp is just a couple degrees above freezing. However, the ecosystems that have evolved are chemosynthetic rather than photosynthetic, revolving around bacteria that metobolize the organic and sulfur rich minerals that are expelled from the mid ocean ridges. This is perfectly reasonable to expect on Europa, as well as in Antarctica as there is known to be a spreading ridge associated with the middle of the continent.

As an aside, Rudolph Hess, member of the Thule Society, commanded a Nazi mission to NeuSchwabenland, Antarctica in 1931, and confirmed from an earlier map the location of a submarine trench that bisected antarctica. This would be extremely valuable as an entry point for submarines. The interesting thing is, he knew about this trench from a far earlier map from the middle ages.

The change in the geological substrate is very interesting. It could indicate a fault line, although I would say it would have to be a very extreme nature fault to be that observable with geophysical means through that depth of ice. It could indicate a significant thinning of the crust, which is possible, again, considering the spreading ridge associated with the middle of the continent.

The magnetic anomaly is of course the big story, and again, to be observable by geophysical means through 2 km of ice and ??? km of bedrock, well, that would send up red flags to any geologist....