Comments on: Scientists to Breach Buried Antarctic Lake, Untouched for Millions of Years

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:14:42 +0000

@Quaker Oats, I was thinking of the 1951 movie, which was moved to the Arctic – I think the station had something to do with the DEW line. You’re right, Campbell’s and Carpenter’s versions were in Antarctica.

By: lonnie bauer

lonnie bauer — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:54:47 +0000

and another big footprint left by scientists.

By: Chuck Pell

Chuck Pell — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:12:58 +0000

Um, the oxygen level is actually very high. That’s part of why the Lake is so interesting. We may have contaminated Lake Vostok years ago with various petrochemicals (kerosene, among them) used in an attempt to prevent the earlier borehole from freezing. It should be noted that the older borehole does not stay straight: it becomes distorted as the ice through which it is drilled shears with time.
Also, as a marine robot researcher, sending a non-tethered robot is a fool’s errand until we 1. see if the boreholes’s other end even stays open, 2. Take current readings at the opening, 3. Dangle a camera, 4. Perform a series of low-energy sonar scans, 5. Take samples at the opening, 6. Lower a cabled sonde (CTD: conductivity, temperature, depth), 7. Lower a sampler to a range of depths, returning a number of samples, 8. Lower a core dart to see what’s directly below, then 9. Allow a TETHERED ROV to explore some, to check out the underside of the ice, see if it can go near the bottom and take pictures there, etc. THEN: #10. Try releasing a non-tethered bot (but make sure to kiss it goodbye, first, because anything dunked into normal water, on a cable, has only a 50-50 chance of coming back, and a non-tethered bot? It’s more than likely to be lost – and quickly.

By: Pablo

Pablo — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:40:52 +0000

Fossilized plants would be very cool. The most interesting thing would be to see what ancient life forms and organisms, even bacteriums they could find in that lake. Also millions of years ago, oxygen levels in the atmosphere were actually larger than they are now, which resulted in larger animals (i.e. dinosaurs). In this case and in this area, a few ice ages and a few miles of icc layers later, it makes it more difficult to get to those fossil records. On land you can dig, but on ice you have to drill. I say there is a pretty good chance they’ll uncover some new species which were native to that area, and nicely preserved too. It would be cool to see what they might “dig up”. Its hydrophillic archeologist’s dream :-)

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:59:43 +0000

I bet all they find is water, and fossilized plants.

By: Wendy Raven

Wendy Raven — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:32:41 +0000

Nullum beneficium est inpunitum!

By: Oldfisherman

Oldfisherman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:51:23 +0000

If there were any creatures in the lake I would think that the oxygen level is very low if any by now but they may find some unwanted bacteria.

By: Brendon Carr

Brendon Carr — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:51:58 +0000

“Using this movie as my sole ‘factual’ source, I predict not an ancient pathogen, but an alien monster capable of replicating any living creature.”

I predict the alien monster will take the form of a hot blonde with amazing knockers which will be on display in many inordinately unlikely seductions and “shocking” black-widow murders.

By: dave

dave — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:25:14 +0000

You’re very selfish tiddas. How much of the world do you require be kept pristine? What other requirements would you put on mankind?

By: deepelemblues

deepelemblues — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:25:51 +0000

Old Ones and Shoggoths should be left alone, Russians.

By: DirtCrashr

DirtCrashr — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:35:07 +0000

You gotta mark your territory! Drill it baby!

By: apetra

apetra — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:25:56 +0000

I hear the Call of Cthulu.

By: Quaker Oats

Quaker Oats — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:33:53 +0000

@Ken, actually it was the Antarctic in both The Thing and Who Goes There? So yeah, almost.

By: TomWys

TomWys — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:54:54 +0000

Time to get serious! There was a UN “protocol” that discussed the proper means to enter the lake. My recommendation of a sterilized 30 Meter stainless steel hollow tube piercing the final 20 meters was rejected as unworkable ( I don’t know, and was not told, why).

The present plan presents risk of contaminants going both ways – lake biota going up and surface oils and greases going into the water. The “geyser” weather altering scenario is a bit fanciful (and I’m being kind here).

Chances of bringing up a “plague pathogen” are slim, but real nonetheless. Chances of contaminating the lake are high, and no one seems to care – a vestige of Lysenko perhaps???

Still, the Vostok Ice cores have been a fantastically valuable addition to our climate knowledge, and the EPICA project patterned after it is first-rate, with no lake to pierce either.

By the way, I don’t know whether the glycerine sent down to seal it a decade ago (when the last Ice-Core was brought to the surface) was sterile either! We may already have done the damage!!!

By: tiddas

tiddas — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:25:36 +0000

Oh yay, humans up to putting their nasty chemicals on every pristine place on earth. Climate-changing Antarctica. Resplendent mysteries be damned — it’s time to put Antarctica in a zoo.

By: floodmouse

floodmouse — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:25:31 +0000

I think I already saw this movie, only it was giant parasitic worms instead of bacteria. Beware spoiler and I’ll give you the title below:
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Smilla’s Sense of Snow (awesome movie)

By: John T

John T — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:09:30 +0000

I think I saw this movie. Watch out for the giant Jurassic python that crawls out of the hole after the explosion!

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:47:22 +0000

According to current weather forecast, the lows temps a night for the next few days are right around -50 degrees F., and the highs are in the -35 degree F, range.

I wouldn’t be too worried about to much water vapor in the atmosphere; rather I’d more afraid that they might end up with the world’s largest Popsicle.

Hopefully, Al Gore will stop by and put his tongue on it.

By: Ugo Dilibe

Ugo Dilibe — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:23:17 +0000

oh, how i love science!!. its really like a movie, first australia and antartica were once connected?? now a lake that once existed as a “lake” is now frozen under ice? so the temperature in this region must have evolved overtime too??

By: Allan Douglas

Allan Douglas — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:29:57 +0000

Yes, a giant, bloodthirsty, shape shifting slushy!

By: yankeefan1a

yankeefan1a — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:08:14 +0000

…when WILL Hollywood make that long awaited ’R’ rated version of At the Mountains of Madness. They drove del Toro off, allowing only a PG13 promise… the buffoons!

Its still one of my all-time favorite books… well… stories.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:02:39 +0000

@4, that was the Arctic, not the Antarctic. The Antarctic is Lovecraft’s shoggoths, which are alien monsters capable of eating any living creature.

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:37:44 +0000

@3. Chris,

I believe there was already a movie made about this. Using this movie as my sole “factual” source, I predict not an ancient pathogen, but an alien monster capable of replicating any living creature.

Run away!

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:46:39 +0000

Next on Syfy
Vostok
“A Russian team drills deep into Antarctica opening up a lake which has not seen the light of day for 20 million years. They unleash an ancient pathogen which infect the team, but one member evades the quarantine and enters the population, infection millions. Will the daring team of American scientists be able to stop the plague in time or is humanity doomed?”

Find out next week!
If this gets made into a movie, I better get some credit.

By: Bobby LaVesh

Bobby LaVesh — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:28:20 +0000

Don’t worry- if things go wrong they’ll blame US radar stations in Alaska. Just like with the Grunt mission.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:14:58 +0000

How come the Russians can just do that, especially given their – surprise! – “sloppy drilling methods?”

Isn’t Antarctica protected by the UN or something like that?