Lake Vostok's Surface Finally Reached

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Lake Vostok's Surface Finally Reached

Long time listener Dan pointed me towards this AP article concerning ground breaking achievement by Russian scientists. Lake Vostok at 160 miles long and 30 miles wide, (similar in size to Lake Ontario) is on of the largest of nearly 400 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Located about 800 miles east of the South Pole Vostock has been locked under more than two miles of ice for twenty million years. Biologist hope that the lake contains unchanged microbial lifeforms that date back millions of years.

Drilling on the site has been on and off since 1969.

2 comments:

BobW said...: Wouldn't evolutionary theory suggest that millions of years of competition for limited resources would have caused there to be some amount of change in any lifeforms found there?; 4:57 PM
Beam Me Up said...: Good question Bob
The assumption here is limited resources. I think we would all make the mistake that the organisms are aerobic when I would almost be is not the case. With mo light and heat from geothermal energy I am willing to bet that there is very little pressure to evolve to fill niches that don't exist. There is already ample evidence of this in the deep ocean trenches but until samples are taken it is all a guessing game.

Thanks for the observation
Paul; 11:07 PM