
Russia poised to breach mysterious Antarctic lake - georgecmu
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/04/us-russia-antarctica-lake-idINTRE7135MB20110204
======
stevenbedrick
Anybody else hearing H.P. Lovecraft echoes here?

Antarctica? Check. Mysterious underground lake? Check. Driven scientists?
Check. Extremely isolated location? Check.

Here's how I see it going down:

Drill pierces lake; eldritch horror escapes or is otherwise unleashed as
consequence of scientific hubris; Vostok station's radio transmissions cease
suddenly; a team is sent to investigate... maybe they find the sole survivor
of the original drill crew (he's gone horribly insane, of course), eking out
an existence in what remains of the research station... he warns the
investigators not to go down to the drill site...

~~~
Devilboy
Also pretty much exactly what happened in Evangelion's Second Impact.

~~~
steveplace
and Alien vs. Predator

------
ddlatham
_"It's minus 40 (Celsius) outside," Turkeyev said._

Celsius, Fahrenheit, what's the difference?

~~~
Swizec
Okay, I have to admit, your post is bloody brilliant. -40 is _exactly_ where
the two scales meet.

Astounding.

------
lukev
"The borehole, pumped full of Kerosene and Freon to keep it from freezing
shut, hangs poised over the pristine lake.

The explorers now face the question: How do we go where no one has gone before
without spoiling it [...]"

Oh, I don't know... how about start by not dumping in _thousands of gallons of
_freon__?

~~~
sfphotoarts
that jumped out at me too, but one has to think that a bunch of clearly
dedicated scientists (I'd have gone home at -10) would have given thought to
pumping CFC's into a pristine lake.

Let's hope so

~~~
btilly
Actually CFCs are not at all bad. They are incredibly stable chemical
compounds that won't normally react with anything else.

The problem with CFCs is that you get a stable compound by reacting really
reactive things together, and now they can't find anything they want to react
with more. So when they get into the upper atmosphere and get broken apart by
hard radiation, you now have really reactive stuff mixed in with the fragile
ozone layer. And they act as a catalyst to break down ozone.

But you can breathe them all you want, and (assuming you got enough oxygen)
will suffer no ill effects.

------
btilly
What caught my eye is this.

 _It was here that the coldest temperature ever found on Earth -- minus 89.2
Celsius (minus 128.6 Fahrenheit) -- was recorded._

That's cold enough that it starts snowing dry ice!

------
adolph
_The borehole, pumped full of Kerosene and Freon to keep it from freezing
shut, hangs poised over the pristine lake._

That is all.

------
jamesjyu
I love the last few sentences:

 _"I feel very excited but once we do it there is no going back," Alexei
Ekaikin, a scientist with the expedition said from Vostok Station. "Once you
touch it, it will be touched forever."_

------
edge17
_"It's minus 40 (Celsius) outside," Turkeyev said. "But whatever, we're
working. We're feeling good. There's only 5 meters left until we get to the
lake so it'll all be very soon."_

love it

------
Groxx
> _There's only 5 meters left until we get to the lake so it'll all be very
> soon._

They're 5 meters away, and they _didn't_ finish and write an article about
_that_? This seems an unnecessary cliffhanger.

~~~
nonane
Looks like they will have to wait a year before they actually break the
surface of the lake. From wikipedia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok>

"The researchers switched to a new thermal drill head with a clean silicon-oil
fluid to drill the rest of the way.[17] Instead of drilling all the way into
the water, they will stop just above it, when a sensor on the thermal drill
detects free water. At that point, the drill will be stopped and extracted
from the bore hole, thereby lowering the pressure beneath it and drawing water
into the hole and left for quite some time to freeze, creating a plug of
frozen ice in the bottom of the hole. Finally, next summer, the team would
drill down again to take a sample of that ice and analyse it.[1][18]"

~~~
Groxx
Nice find. That's an _excellent_ reason, almost zero contamination that way.

So why didn't the article mention it? If anything, they go backwards: _"But
until we learn how to get into the system cleanly that's an issue"_

------
zwieback
Why isn't the lake frozen solid?

~~~
sfphotoarts
I would assume because its very well insulated from above and warmed by the
earth's core from below, but I'm not a geologist.

~~~
NickPollard
It's also probably due to being under high pressure; the melting point of a
substance is dependent on the pressure it is under.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Except its water which kinda defines incompressible.

Answer is thermal energy from tectonic processes. Cite:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V61-47BX9V7-1&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F10%2F2003&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=66844a166df35541b0ce95101bf7e720&searchtype=a)

~~~
billswift
It doesn't matter how compressible it is, its temperature still rises from
pressure. That is why ice is so slippery, pressure (from a tire, foot, or ice
skate) melts a thin layer of water on the surface which acts as a lubricant
(which is also why ice stops being slippery when its temperature gets low
enough that normal pressures can't raise it enough to melt).

~~~
mchouza
It's more complex than that:

<http://lptms.u-psud.fr/membres/trizac/Ens/L3FIP/Ice.pdf>

Even an extremely high pressure cannot melt ice at -25 °C, but skiing is still
possible at that temperature.

~~~
yread
great article! If you have the time read it.

