Talk:Lake Vostok/Archive 1

Ancient life in Lake Vostok?

Back in 2003 I watched a Russian TV program, in which they interviewed two eminent geographers, Andrei Kapitsa (Pyotr Kapitsa's son) and Alexei Zotikov, who predicted the lake's existence and conducted its first measurements.

The lake was first spied by Soviet pilots back in 1950s but the definitive study of the lake's dimensions was carried on by Kapitsa and Zotikov 20 years later. It is thought that the lake's surface was covered with ice 5 to 30 mln years ago. For all these years, the lake water didn't contact with atmosphere, therefore it contains the purest freshwater on Earth, free of any contaminants. It was demonstrated that the lake freshwater absorbs huge quanitities of oxygen from the snow shield above it. The water is unusually warm, probably a little below 0C, compared with -55C at the surface. The melting snow contains enough mineral substance to sustain certain forms of life.

While most of the geographers believe that the ancient life must be present in the form of bacteria, others point out that larger forms of life are not impossible too. According to them, the lake is situated in the region of high seismic activity, where hot thermal springs and oil are fairly common. The Russian scientists drained the tunnel to 3623 metres below the ice surface. They stopped 130 metres from the lake surface to investigate the possible methods of obtaining samples of Vostok water without damaging its ecosystem. The drilling is expected to be relaunched in 2007.

The study of ice already obtained from the drilling have yielded some interesting results. For example, some species of extinct bacteria were discovered that could have thrived only at temperatures 55C and higher. --Ghirlandajo 14:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Those seeking citation for the 1 million year isolation might use "The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup," by Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada (see p. 244) -- ACzernek 14:32, 30 November 2007

Measurements

In my change just now, I substituted metric measurements for the imperial measurements of the ridge, to match the existing measurements and the style guide. The most significant change was the volume, from 1800 km^3 to 5400; the latter figure comes from the recent research by Studinger et al. Isidore 08:57, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Does it really make sense to translate "roughly" 150m to "exactly" 492 feet, rather than just saying 500 (since it's a "rough" number)

No, I missed that one! Isidore 12:33, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It makes more sense still to check our facts... various other sites say 120m (such as gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/scotia/vserm/vserm070904.htm) and others say 100m (such as science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast05mar98_1.htm), with "roughly" and "about" thrown in. If anyone reads Russian, maybe they'd care to check an original source. Isidore 12:49, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/vostok/Report.pdf is the final report from the NSF-sponsored Lake Vostok Workshop, held in November 1998. It says "approximately 120m". Isidore 21:01, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Metric

You are right Isidore, sorry about that. I should have read the guidelines more carefully since this was my first contribution to Wiki – I’ll try to be more careful next time. Cheers, Roo.

Slashdot comment

A while ago I linked to this article in a Slashdot comment, and in response to my post an anonymous contributor there offered some criticisms of this article. Anyone who knows enough to analyze these criticisms and amend the article accordingly is welcome to read the Slashdot comment. --Saforrest 23:42, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

New Review

In the Siegert MJ (2005). "Lakes Beneath the Ice Sheet: The Occurrence Analysis, and Future Exploration of Lake Vostok and Other Antarctic Subglacial Lakes". Annu Rev Earth Planet Sci (33): 215–245. artikle there are several points which are missed in the article:

• There are several meassurments how deep the lake is(500 or more than 1000).
• The concentration of oxygen is estimated to be 17 mikromolar to 850 mikromolar to 2.5 litres per liter which is quite much.
• There is a dispute about how old this lake is and if it really existed befor the glacias or was formed after the ice was thick enough to shield it against the supra cool air.

I will write something about this and put it up to discussion.Stone 16:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested to check my comment above. --Ghirla | talk 11:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Is the above reference the source of information for stating that the maximum depth of Lake Vostok is 1000m deep? I note that in Lakenet, http://www.worldlakes.org/lakedetails.asp?lakeid=9230, lake vostok is referenced as having a maximum depth of only 500 m. I have seen other references online to a maximum depth of 670 m. I would appreciate any resolution of the many discrepancies of the maximum depth of this subglacial lake.--Pkrnger (talk) 01:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)--

Fossil water

Is this an example of fossil water? 141.155.28.92 01:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Discovery

The 1996 date is completely incorrect; the existence of the lake had been known since about 1974, and indeed the 1996 paper is based on a reworking of the echo sounding data gathered during the 1970s. It is also true that the 1970's work is the earliest point at which the lake could be discovered; references to 1950's Soviet observations by pilots are simply wrong - there is no surface expression visible from an aircraft. I can find references if necessary; however, the work of R H N Steed at Scott Polar Research Institute is probably the starting point.--APRCooper (talk) 19:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The following references are relevant; I think the Oswald and Robin one is probably the earliest note of Lake Vostok, but I don't have the paper to hand.

OSWALD G.K.A. & ROBIN G.DEQ. 1973. Lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Nature, 245,251-254.

STEED R.H.N. 1980. Geophysical investigations of Wilkes Land, Antarctica. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 178pp. [Unpublished.]

--APRCooper (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As there have been no objections, I have amended the article's Discovery section.--APRCooper (talk) 15:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Location within Antartica?

There's an image[1] on Wikipedia Commons which shows where the lake is situated in Antartica. I think it would be good to include it for peoples' benefit. Does anyone else agree with me?

FreeT (talk) 01:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

13,000 vs 420,000 years

If the motion of the ice sheet over the lake refreshes the water in 13,000 years, how could the ice just above the lake be 420,000 years old? If the 13,000 year cycle is correct, then the ice currently over the lake was somewhere very distant 420,000 years ago. How long ago was the last time Antarctica wasn't covered with ice? Bizzybody (talk) 21:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

potential resource

Raiders of the lost lake "Within weeks, Russian researchers hope to finish drilling through Antarctica’s ice sheet to reach Lake Vostok, a huge freshwater lake roughly 3,750 metres beneath the surface. It’s a race against time: 10–50 metres of ice separate the team from its goal, which it must reach before the last aircraft of the season leaves in February. There’ll be more drilling research in April, when Japan’s Chikyu ship sets sail to bore into the underwater fault that caused the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake last year."

99.181.147.68 (talk) 05:39, 4 January 2012 (UTC)