Russian Team Prepares To Penetrate Lake Vostok 237
Lanxon writes "Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometers below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen — levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes."
i hope for new life forms and new genomes for us. (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope for new life forms and new genomes for us, bioinformaticians.
The more I learn about the way the phenotype is coded in the genome, the more in awe of the creation I am.
Subhana Allah
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It would be cool if there was an ancient temple down there where Aliens and Predators are fighting each other to the death.
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Yes, praise Zeus!
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Wonder what else is down there? (Score:2)
Let's assume I made (all of) the obvious joke(s) about "penetrate" so we can get that out of the way.
Finding creatures sealed off for 14 million years below 4km of ice would be pretty cool. I wonder what else is under the Antarctic ice? Was the continent ever tropical/non-icy? Might we find fossils of new species, assuming there was some way to get down there?
Re:Wonder what else is down there? (Score:5, Informative)
Was the continent ever tropical/non-icy?
yes. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wonder what else is down there? (Score:5, Funny)
We know how this is going to end (Score:5, Funny)
They'll dig up a strange UFO with some doppleganger virus that causes the whole crew to kill each other.
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Nahhh... we should check if Weyland Industries has anything to do with this.
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Or they will find diamonds then some enterprising mercenary and a doctor will kill everyone they can and hide the diamonds inside the corpses only to be found out by a very attractive FBI woman.
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I, for one, welcome the awakening of the Ancient Elder God. Perhaps he will finish the work of Al Queda, wiping away the pentagon and realizing their true mission, the liberation of Yog Sothoth!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
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In Lovecraftian lore, he is an Old One, and a priest to the Old Gods, but not one of the gods himself. Think Yog-Sothoth etc. for the gods.
Oh, and lest I forget. Hastur! Hastur! Hastur!
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Ahhh see... my lovecraft is more than a bit rusty and, I only read a few of the stories anyway. I was actually scouring wikipedia for a reference to a title that I could use for him, but eventually gave up and went with elder god :)
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Oh...and had I found this article (or read the actual intro to the cthulu one)... they actually list other names for each of the old ones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Old_Ones [wikipedia.org]
So... I for one, welcome the coming of The Great Priest, The Master of R'lyeh! Let The Sleeping God awake!
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In Soviet.... (Score:5, Funny)
In Soviet Antarctica, buried lake penetrates drill hole!
Seriously. RTFA.
Re:In Soviet.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The same way they know pretty accurate solar compositions from galactic distances away.
Most likely spectroscopy.
Earlier reports (Score:2)
Earlier reports had them buying drinks for the lake and complimenting it's clarity.
Oh great (Score:3)
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if I may paraphrase Pink Floyd:
Don't be surprised when a Krakken The Ice
Appears under your feet...
You slip out of your depths
And out of your mind
With the Krakken close behind you
As you drill the thin ice!
Russian Teen Prepares To Penetrate Lake Vostok (Score:3)
Wait a minute... (Score:3)
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or The Thing
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Yeah but that movie sucked. I'd prefer to reference The Thing.
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Not unless they find a pyramid down there.
Obligatory... (Score:2, Informative)
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
A Colder War [infinityplus.co.uk]
Whew! (Score:2)
Here's a stupid question (Score:2)
Re:Here's a stupid question (Score:4, Funny)
These scientists actually know the oxygen concentration because the scientists actually read the article. Yeah, I know. My logic is well shaped. I assert that "circular" is a shape.
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Way OT but reminded me of my favorite line from Raising Arizona.
"Do these balloons blow up in funny shapes?"
"Not unless round's funny."
fhtagn (Score:2)
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Oligotropic doesn't mean its rich in oxygen (Score:5, Informative)
It just means an environment which is low in nutrients.
The lake just happens to have high oxygen levels because of high pressure from the layers of ice - that doesn't make it oligotrophic.
not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it means that the lake has very few nutrients and is therefore not terribly productive biologically. see here [wikipedia.org]. Many lakes that fall into the oligotropic chategory are also Oxygenated but it is not why they are oligotropic.
The real question I have is where that Oxygen is coming from. There probably isn't much photosynthesis going on at that depth which means either Oxygen is being imported to the system, it isn't being consumed very rapidly or it's being generated somehow.
You think your working conditions are bad... (Score:4, Informative)
Cool to see they have a plan for getting info without causing harm. Hopefully it all works well.
The researchers involved on site have my respect. Here's some info about where they work:
Ave. winter temp: -65C, ave. summer temp: -30C
Altitude: 3488m
Record low temp: -89C. Good thing they are at altitude, as CO2 freezing point is -78C at 1atm.
Polar night for 130 days.
I like science... but I don't like science that much.
Re:You think your working conditions are bad... (Score:5, Funny)
When it becomes -65C they cannot find any water in liquid state, so someone came up with this bright idea to drill a hole to an ancient lake, just so they can have a pool in winter.
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I think I saw this on an episode of Eureka, didn't the ice have an ice producing bacteria in it?
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Behold! - The power of alcohol.
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I love science. I can sit in my warm house and watch it all day long.
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Sounds like Buffalo, minus the corrupt politicians. Oh wait, this is a Russian crew, yes?
No need to drill, it's just in the basement. (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DlN4Sh06po [youtube.com]
Bloody sharks.
.
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Let's go straight to profit, shall we? (Score:5, Funny)
This sounds like.... (Score:4, Funny)
Bottle it! (Score:4, Interesting)
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But I can imagine quite a market for 14-million year-old bottled water contaminated with plastic additives which leaked from the bottle and metals from the tanker who shipped it from the south pole, and detergents from the bottling plant and... Seriously!
There, fixed that for ya..
Fish Lottery (Score:2)
Any wagers as to whether fish are in that lake and what they might look like?
Did You Even Read the Article? (Score:5, Informative)
I fail to see the need to drill to this lake so far below the surface. For one thing I would be worried about bringing back up who knows what with organisms and bacteria that we have not seen before that could be dangerous, also don't you think they would be contaminating this lake by drilling into it?
From the article:
Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent's environment, that it's come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. Valery Lukin told New Scientist: "Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again." The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.
I think it's similar to this mission at Lake Ellsworth [nerc.ac.uk].
Arthur C. Clarke (Score:2)
I think it's similar to this mission at Lake Ellsworth [nerc.ac.uk].
It sounds like one of those Space Odyssey books, without leaving earth.
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It takes a long string of implausibly (impossibly?) disastrous outcomes to cause any concern whatsoever.
So was implied about offshore drilling but look at the monumental fuck up that BP was able to pull off in the gulf.
The only people ever to claim that offshore drilling is inherently safe are lobbyists of various types.
Drilling is like sitting on a bomb and hitting it with a hammer all afternoon. Almost certainly nothing bad will happen, but it's pretty obvious that there's a remote chance of disaster, and the nature of the disaster is obvious.
Drilling into a lake in such a way that the borehole will be plugged with the water from that lake several kilometers before reaching the surface, the surface of Antarctica no les
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...like sitting on a bomb and hitting it with a hammer all afternoon. Almost certainly nothing bad will happen,
Hey that's one of my all time favourite bugs-bunny episodes! Now if you would please step off my lawn.
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Yeah, imagine the environmental horrors of a spill of the cleanest water on earth spewing endlessly out.
Re:Did You Even Read the Article? (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see the need to drill to this lake so far below the surface. For one thing I would be worried about bringing back up who knows what with organisms and bacteria that we have not seen before that could be dangerous, also don't you think they would be contaminating this lake by drilling into it?
From the article:
Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent's environment, that it's come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. Valery Lukin told New Scientist: "Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again." The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.
I think it's similar to this mission at Lake Ellsworth [nerc.ac.uk].
So is it going to freeze before it hits the top of the bore then? If not that means we're releasing whatever is in that water into our environment. That could be really really bad any way you look at it. I'm not hopeful enough that it could release something giving us extreme life-extensions.
So, drilling a hole in the ground and sucking out millions of barrels of hydrocarbons, which have been isolated for thousands (or millions) of years, as well as any organisms living there is fine. Collecting a sample from a lake that has been isolated for thousands of years for research is the beginning of the apocalypse? I can only assume you're quite concerned about the Large Hadron Collider, as well.
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Maybe he/she is worried about releasing The Andromeda Strain...
Re:Did You Even Read the Article? (Score:4, Funny)
> Maybe he/she is worried about releasing The Andromeda Strain...
Don't be silly. It's shoggoths all the way down.
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I would suggest that anything that can survive the highly oxidizing environment of an oxygen-saturated solvent at -100C in pitch darkness is probably not going to last long in the ion-saturated solar heated environment of the upper atmosphere, even if it were to escape.
But that is presuming that there is sufficient pressure to force fresh water through miles of solid ice at -100C temperatures without freezing anyway, which there probably isn't.
Even if there is, I would wager that they thought of this and ha
Re:Why do they need to drill to this lake? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah seriously... haven't they seen The Thing? Luckily Kurt Russell and Keith David are still around to protect us.
Re:Why do they need to drill to this lake? (Score:5, Informative)
I fail to see the need to drill to this lake so far below the surface. For one thing I would be worried about bringing back up who knows what with organisms and bacteria that we have not seen before that could be dangerous, also don't you think they would be contaminating this lake by drilling into it?
Any bacteria or other organism that are alive down there have spent the last 14 million years adapting to that environment.
It is a near certainty that they would find our bodies to be a completely inhospitable environment.
The dangerous bacteria are the ones that are adapted to human bodies -- or close enough bodies that it's only a small jump to humans. There are many, many viruses and bacteria that infect mammals but are incapable of reproducing inside our bodies. Antarctic under-ice lake bacteria? No chance.
Re:Anybody else feel like this is a bad idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Once you pop that bubble so to speak the place will never be the same"
That is true for almost everything we do on this planet whether we like it or not. It's our modus operandi.
"And what's the chance that there's organisms that are harmful to our current ecosystems? " Not a great chance. Harm is never the ultimate goal of microorganisms that are "harmful" to us. Harm is always a byproduct of being able to use us and in order to do that, microorganism must coexist with us for some time.
Randomness * really big numbers = very little probabilities.
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eldavojohn explained it here [slashdot.org] in answer to someone who asked the same question as you.
In short, they've actually thought of the possible problems! Will wonders never cease?
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You mean some schmuck on slashdot didn't discover new problems that elitist scientists, probably played by Oliver Platt, with their Lexuses (Lexi?) and mistresses and ear of the president, up in their ivory tower of Oxford or Yale or Brown didn't think about?
Not much of a script writer, are you?
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With the supersaturation of the water with O2, I am wondering if much of that O2 will come out of the water when it is breached, most likely destroying the environment down there. I see it kind of like the lakes supersaturated with CO2 in Africa. I didn't see this mentioned at all in the article, just that they expect the water to refreeze.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos [wikipedia.org]
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I think it's unlikely that most of the O2 will come out of solution. They're creating a relatively small-diameter bore into the container of the liquid, and then pulling the drill back out, allowing the pressure inside the container to push water back up into the bore. The water will freeze, resealing the bore, then they'll take a sample of the ice that re-froze in the bore hole to analyze, so nothing 'alien' will be introduced *into* the lake's container.
For an analogy, think of this as drawing blood by
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I suppose I don't have an idea of scale of this. I was thinking of a rather small lake, I guess it is much larger.
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Yep, from the wikipedia entry, the lake is ~250 km long, and ~50 km wide at its widest point - it's of a size with Lake Ontario, so it's definitely a pretty big body of water.
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Yea, lets all sit on our hands and not touch anything ever again... we might CHANGE something!?!!
Re:Anybody else feel like this is a bad idea? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Look Up (Score:2, Funny)
What does Sarah Palin think?
Re:Look Up (Score:4, Funny)
Is that a trick question?
Re:Look Up (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Look Up (Score:5, Funny)
Would it be impolite to point out that she has accomplished far more in life than you or I have, or probably ever will? If Sarah Palin is dumb, therefore, there's a significantly greater than zero chance that you and I are even dumber.
That is based on the ridiculous notion that intelligence equates to fame. To make this point, I only have two words - "Jersey Shore".
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I'd mod you up to 11, if I could
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Only if you consider corrupt politicians to be role models for accomplishment...
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Re:Look Up (Score:4, Insightful)
Is she more famous than 99% of the people on slashdot? Yeah, I'd say so. But more accomplished? I think it would be safe to say that you believe she's accomplished more than you, but I'm not sure if you could say that about everyone. Of course it all depends on what yardstick you're using to measure accomplishment. Is becoming a state governor more or less of an accomplishment than saving a person's life? Is raising a family more or less of an accomplishment than holding one together in poverty? etc... I think you get my point.
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I wouldn't call it an "accomplishment" as in something to strive for, but she has definitely had a larger impact than most of us.
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As a world famous demagogue she should be having a larger impact on the modern news cycle than any of us. Who knows how long it'll last? *shrug* The mob is a fickle creature, and it's hard to tell if someone is going to become a mainstay or will fade into anonymity in a decade or two.
But as for impact on the world outside the headlines and politics? I don't think she'll be very effective in actually producing change.
Re:Look Up (Score:4, Funny)
Why the !@#$ isn't this whole thread modded -99 off-topic?
Why off-topic?
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica. Antarctica has lots of ice, so does the North Pole. The North Pole is somewhere in Alaska (at least the magnetic one). From Alaska you can see Russia, and the Russians are drilling in Antarctica.
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica. Palin would like to drill in Alaska. There are concerns about the environmental impact. But the Russians found a safer way of doing it. Palin is against safer ways of doing it. But the Russians would like to penetrate Lake Vostok. So the Russians are drilling in Antarctica.
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica. Russia borders the Arctic. The Arctic has Polar bears, but the Russians went to the pole with the penguins. Penguins represent Linux. Linux is communism. And communism is what the Russians do. No wonder, the Russians are drilling in Antarctica.
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica...
Re:Look Up (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that's not even true.
His approval ratings are higher than Bush or Carter, he has had more victories for his agenda than most presidents in the first two years, has an astoundingly high approval rating OUTSIDE of the US, certainly higher than Bush and even Reagan during his first two years.
While the health care thing is probably a non-ideal solution, it is apparently too painful for republicans to realize that it was an almost exact copy of the bill originally drafted by Bob Dole and rejected by democrats for being "too conservative". Frankly, it sounds like partisan hackery or talking-point-itis to claim he's the most incompetent president on record.
Re:Look Up (Score:5, Informative)
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Ssshhh. Watching two idiots argue is hilarious good fun. Don't spoil it.
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In Soviet Russia, new oligotropic overlords welcome you!
Oxygen, or was it carbon dioxide?
Seriously, Nobody Read the Article? (Score:5, Informative)
So what *are* the ramifications of releasing a large pocket of oxygen into our current atmosphere, both for us and for the lake which has been sitting isolated for 14 million years?
Your fears are unfounded, from the article:
Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent's environment, that it's come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. Valery Lukin told New Scientist: "Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again." The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.
So they're taking the appropriate precautions there ...
Not so much being snarky as not being a scientist and am curious. It's great that we can go anywhere that's locked away and hidden, but should we?
The moon was "locked away" but we went there, didn't we?
Everyone needs to relax, there's an expedition to explore Lake Ellsworth and we've already explored an ultra-oligotrophic lake named Hodgson Lake [nerc.ac.uk] and the results:
They found... nothing. The analyses show that the Hodgson Lake water 'is one of the clearest water lakes I have ever worked on, clearer than the distilled water we use in our lab, with almost nothing in it,' says Hodgson. The samples have virtually no nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and very low measurements of other chemical elements.
So they're going to take necessary precautions approved by a governing body and the odds are high that their results will just turn up some of the purest water we've ever seen. Of course the article notes that if they find extremophiles, it'll be a boon for studying the many protective enzymes the organisms need to live.
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> ...the purest water we've ever seen.
And under kilometers of ice: a good place for a neutrino detector.
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The moon was "locked away" but we went there, didn't we?
That's different. That was America that went to the moon. So that was OK. This is Russia, so it's Bad.
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Re:Seriously, Nobody Read the Article? (Score:4, Funny)
Read the article? You must be new here. :)
He's an extremophile.
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It wouldn't effect the world at large. The lake would be forever changed however.
Do note that they are not opening it to the air. They are going to poke it, let the pressure differential push some of the lakewater out the bore a ways and plug it.... which will cause the released water to freeze and plug the lake. Later, they can drill back down and take a hunk of the frozen water without re-opening the lake itself, and do their sciency stuff with that.
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If it changes when we see it, does that means it's really schrodinger's lake?
Re:Penetrate, you say? (Score:4, Interesting)
...release unknown, ancient pathogens into the atmosphere...
which can't survive in our environment which has 1/50 the oxygen they are used to?
...so they can drill it next year to extract specimens...
like 2012? uh oh, you may be on to something. :-)
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nah, they obviously wrote that Mayan calendar just for ME, since I'm eligible to retire Dec 21, 2012. Life as I know it will certainly end, but probably not life as most people know it.
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> ...our environment which has 1/50 the oxygen they are used to?
lake Vostok has 50 times as much oxygen as the typical freshware lake, not 50 times as much oxygen as the atmosphere. A typical freshwater lake has much, much less oxygen than the atmosphere.
coming soon : "Elder God Park" (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah "Ooh, aah", that's how it always starts. But then there's running and screaming.
It was clearly spelled out in the transmission from the pyramid. What part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" didn't you understand?
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The lake has several million tons of ice sitting on top of it. It's a pretty safe bet that it's under a lot of pressure.
But I have no idea about the oxygen, either.