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Lake Vostok

Largest subglacial lake in Antarctica, sealed for millions of years.

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Among the 675 subglacial lakes documented in Antarctica, Lake Vostok is the largest, and globally it ranks as the 16th largest lake when measured by surface area.[1] The name "Vostok" for both the station and the lake comes from a Russian sloop-of-war, with the word translating to "East" in Russian, and the lake is situated in East Antarctica.[2] While the ice sheet above Lake Vostok preserves a climate record spanning 400,000 years, the lake's water is thought to have been cut off from the surface for a period between 15 and 25 million years.[3]

Geography and history

The existence of the lake was finally confirmed in 1993 by J. P. Ridley using ERS-1 laser altimetry.[2] The discovery was published in the science journal Nature on 20 June 1996.[4] The lake water is cradled on a bed of sediments 70 m thick.[5] Based on seismic measurements taken during the Soviet Antarctic Expeditions of 1959 and 1964, Russian geographer Andrey Kapitsa was the first to propose the existence of a subglacial lake.[2]

In the early 1970s, British scientists conducting airborne ice-penetrating radar surveys in Antarctica picked up anomalous radar signals that pointed to a liquid freshwater lake beneath the ice.[6] The dimensions of Lake Vostok are 250 km in length and 50 km at its broadest point, resulting in a total surface area of 12,500 km².[7] On July 21, 1983, the Vostok Station recorded the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever measured on Earth, which was -89 °C.[8] A Russian scientific team successfully drilled the longest ice core ever, reaching 3,768 m, and broke through to the lake's surface on February 5, 2012.[9]

What the cited sources add

A 2011 BBC News article reported that the sub-glacial lake is located underneath the remote Vostok station in Antarctica.[10] The same article noted that the lake is similar in size to Lake Baikal in Siberia or Lake Ontario in North America.[10] A 2020 Meduza article stated that the Vostok Station was built in December 1957 during the Second Soviet Antarctic Expedition.[11] The Meduza article also reported that billionaire businessman Leonid Mikhelson invested about four billion rubles in the Vostok Station's construction.[11]

The BBC article also reported that in 2006, researchers found evidence for a network of rivers under the ice connecting Antarctica's sub-glacial lakes.[10] The Meduza article noted that the new wintering complex will be capable of supporting 35 people in the summer and 15 in the winter.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Livingstone, "Subglacial lakes and their changing role in a warming climate", Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, February 2022, p. 106–124; Alex, "The largest Lakes in the World by Area", Vivid Maps, 2019-02-24 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dotan, "Watercraft on World Coins: Europe, 1800-2005", The Alpha Press, 2007, p. 220; "Geographer found vast lake hidden under Antarctic ice", The Sydney Morning Herald, 2011-09-04; "Appeal to the Duma on Lake Vostok, Antarctica", Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, 14 April 2008; "Умер ученый Андрей Капица, сделавший в Антарктиде одно из крупнейших открытий XX века", NEWSru.com, 3 August 2011; "Appeal to the Duma on Lake Vostok, Antarctica", Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, 14 April 2008 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Moskvitch, "Lake Vostok drilling in Antarctic 'running out of time'", BBC News, 27 January 2011; Casey Kazan, "Secrets of Antarctica's 15-Million Year-Old Lake -A Galaxy Classic", The Daily Galaxy, 5 December 2007; Studinger, "Subglacial Lake Vostok", Columbia University, 2008; Douglas Fox, "Hidden Antarctic Lake Spills Its Secrets", Discover Magazine, February 2013; "Europa: Ocean Moon", solarsystem.nasa.gov; "The Geysers of Enceladus - Will Saturn's Moon Reveal a "Second Genesis"?", The Daily Galaxy, 31 July 2014 (we also read that source en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kapitsa, "A large deep freshwater lake beneath the ice of central East Antarctica", Nature, 20 June 1996, p. 684–686 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Michael Studinger, "Tectonic Control of Subglacial Lakes", Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, 2006; Morton, "Ice Station Vostok", April 2000; Robert Lee Hotz, "Miles Below Antarctic Ice, a Freshwater Lake May Harbor Ancient Life", Los Angeles Times, 3 March 2001 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Oswald, "Lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet", Nature, 1973, p. 251–4 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Antarctica's Lake Vostok Controversy", Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, 2010 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Moskvitch, "Lake Vostok drilling in Antarctic 'running out of time'", BBC News, 27 January 2011; "Lake Vostok, Antarctica", Lakelubbers LLC, 2012; Vincent, "Polar lakes and rivers: limnology of Arctic and Antarctic aquatic ecosystems", Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 129; "Subglacial Lake Environments"; Zotikov, "The Antarctic subglacial Lake Vostok: glaciology, biology and planetology", Springer Praxis Books / Geophysical Sciences, 26 July 2006 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Lake Vostok" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Marc Kaufman, "Russians drill into previously untouched Lake Vostok below Antarctic glacier", The Washington Post, 6 February 2012; Amir Khan, "Buried Lake Reached: Lake Vostok Water Retrieved After 14 Million Years", International Science Times, 15 January 2013; Douglas Fox, "Hidden Antarctic Lake Spills Its Secrets", Discover Magazine, February 2013; Michael Marshall, "Lake Vostok may boast a thriving ecosystem", New Scientist, 8 July 2013 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Moskvitch, "Lake Vostok drilling in Antarctic 'running out of time'", BBC News, 27 January 2011. facts only, no text reused. bbc.co.uk
  11. Staff, "Trouble at the Vostok Station", Meduza.io, 20 December 2020. facts only, no text reused. meduza.io

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Lake Vostok (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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