In 1964 a Russian geographer by the name of Andrey Kapitsa discovered 250 kilometres of Antarctic sheet ice, which appeared to be hollow. Kapitsa speculated that what he’d actually found was a prehistoric lake trapped under the ice and as it turned out, he wasn’t wrong. Using radar satellites, scientists now know that Antarctica is riddled with a series of over 300 liquid lakes, each with a minimum age of half a million years, and probably much older. To biologists they’re an evolutionary time capsule and to astronomers they’re a chance to study environments that likely exist elsewhere in the universe. This second point has incited a kind of Space Race redux as Russian, American and British scientists spent the summer of 2012 competing to first bore holes down to their respective lakes. They all finished up in February but there was no announcement of who’d actually won and that left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. I wanted a recap so I spoke to the director of the International Antarctic Institute in Hobart. His name is Dr Andrew McMinn and as he sees it, everyone kicked goals except Russia.
VICE: Hi Andrew, can you explain which country was working on which lake?
Dr Andrew McMinn:So the Russians were drilling to Lake Vostok and that’s the biggest one by far. (This is the 250 kilometre long lake referred to in the intro) It’s 4 kilometres beneath the ice but unfortunately they were doing it as you’d drill an oil well and that makes it almost impossible to sample the lake without contaminating it first. They actually claim they’ve found life in the lake but the likelihood it’s from the lake is remote.
And the Americans?
The Americans had Lake Whillans, which is a smaller one. Their ice was only 800 meters thick and they got through on the 27th of January. They sent down a little auto sub and now there’s actually footage of the lake online. They also brought back some samples and have claimed to have found life.
And the Brits?
They had Lake Ellsworth but they had equipment problems and pulled out on Christmas Day. Unfortunately they pulled out after getting only 300 metres from a distance of 2.5 kilometres on but they’re hoping to go back and try again. They were the only ones using space standard clean technologies.
Yes, the space thing. What’s that all about?
Well, the best chance of us finding life somewhere our solar system is on Europa, the sea ice moon of Jupiter. That sounds esoteric but we’re pretty sure there’s liquid water underneath the sea ice and like in Antarctica, it’s not the cold that keeps stuff from living, it’s the presence of water. When water is locked up in ice organisms can’t use it and that prevents life. So drilling these ice cores in Antarctica will give us a good idea of what to expect out there in the solar system.
A US drill hole.
What’s the main difficulty of drilling these holes?
Temperature. Lake Vostok actually holds the record for the earth’s lowest temperature and I think that record still stands at -80 degrees. At that temperature nothing works. Vehicles don’t work, equipment doesn’t work, battery life can be measured in seconds. All that makes it extremely difficult to do anything.
And you’ve mentioned looking for life. Does this mean prehistoric fish?
Well, no. The problem is that these lakes are in the dark. If you’re 4000 metres under ice, there’s not a photon of light getting down there and animals need to eat something. Normally they eat plants but if there’s no light, there are no plants. There are other primitive forms of bacteria which use chemical energy and that’s what we’re looking at.
But are bacteria interesting?
You have to remember that these organisms that have been out of contact with the rest of evolution for an absolute minimum of half a million years. It’s looking back at life from a long time ago, like resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger or the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park.
US found bacteria sample.
So who learned the most about Jurassic bacteria in 2012?
Well it’s only been since February so too early to know. This summer I think the British have a good chance. Their ice is thicker than the American lake and they’re using the cleanest technologies.
But not the Russians?
Absolutely not. Both the Americans and British decided to go for smaller, more isolated lakes and test the drilling technology before trying it on the big one. As I said, Lake Vostok is by far the biggest but it’s also connected to lots of others. This means it’s likely that if you contaminate one, you’ll contaminate the others. Everyone was hoping we’d wait to sample these lakes cleanly but the Russians wanted to be there first. It was tragic they pushed ahead before waiting on cleaner technologies. Now no one can be sure of the validity of the finds.
