Lake Vostok Antarctica: breakthrough imminent.

Originally posted by squandered
I think that they drilled through and got some water and left because of the weather. They won't start again until next year. It doesn't sit well with me.

Why doesn't it sit well with you? It makes good sense, considering the winter climate, to close up shop & finish in better weather. Do you remember how difficult it was for the scientist with cancer to be evacuated out of Antarctica some years back? Vostok is far more isolated than she was, any emergency evacs would have a much higher risk if any kind of situation arose. I'm ok with them playing it safe rather than risking being sorry. Research doesn't crumble into oblivion if it's paused, regular joes just need to take the environment & risks into consideration & have a shred of patience more.

Edit: I'm not certain, but I've also heard in Vostok's winter temperatures, it's difficult to impossible to keep the machinery running. Emergencies in that climate aside, that is also a good reason to hang it up. If you can't get the parts moving & working, what good does staying do?

It feels sinister to me.I think they pretended to wrap it up early so the eyes of the world will stop watching.

The lies they tell have penetrated deep within me,and many others feel the ache of untruth.

reply to post by Nyiah


I agree with your points about the logistics. As far as I can tell they are only doing what they can do, in the given circumstances.

That said, I did feel put out when the media around the event just died. Logic dictates that the media is always like this. If there isn't a decent headline, then there is no story.

I'm only imagining what lies beneath the lake.

Probably the worst scenario is that the scientists find enough mineral wealth to start mining Antarctica. Nobody will complain once we start getting used to the idea. It is important that the countries who are taking an interest in Antarctica act in a way that shows they realise the continent belongs to the whole world, including conservationists.

Looks like the british are getting involved, very nice

Link to report

Jay

Originally posted by aorAki
...no word on the two other Antarctic lakes (admittedly not as large) being drilled into by the British and Americans. Vostok takes precedence, it seems.

Originally posted by ototheb85
Looks like the british (sic) are getting involved, very nice

Link to report

Jay

Thanks Jay. I couldn't remember the names of the lakes.
So, we have Lake Vostok, Lake Ellsworth and...I wonder which one the Yanks are drilling?

a reply to: aorAki

This one needs a bump. Havent heard a good Vostock conspiracy in a long time.

Wasnt there an expo as recently as 2016-17?

The dark waters of a lake deep beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet and a few hundred miles from the South Pole are teeming with bacterial life, say scientists — despite it being one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

The discovery has implications for the search for life on other planets — in particular on the planet Mars, where signs of a buried lake of liquid saltwater were seen in data reported last year by the European Space Agency's orbiting Mars Express spacecraft.

Expedition leader John Priscu, a professor of polar ecology at the University of Montana, told Live Science in a telephone interview from Antarctica this week that early studies of water samples taken from Lake Mercer — which is buried beneath a glacier — showed that they contained approximately 10,000 bacterial cells per milliliter.

"Vostok is 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) deep and under 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) of ice, so that would be a heck of a challenge. And it is also up at 4,000 meters altitude to work at," he said. "So that would be a tough one."

LiveScience.co, Jan. 15, 2019 - Hidden Beneath a Half Mile of Ice, Antarctic Lake Teems with Life.

Not exactly Vostok but they did manage to get a plug in for it! And that looks like quiet the effort to go drill high up there.

But it does show that microbial life can endure under a mile of ice and without sun light. And if it is found in one Antarctic lake it should also be others including Vostok.

I know it is not Nazi UFOs in a secret under ice base but considering how hard they had to work to get their water samples it worthy of applause. Sometimes good science is good enough!