Engineering: Digging up Antarctica’s secrets

 

A British scientist is to embark on one of the last missions to explore unchartered territory on Earth – unearthing a subglacial lake in Antarctica.

Scrabble Word Finder

Glaciologist Dr John Woodward from Northumbria University, together with experts from the British Antarctic Survey and Edinburgh University, will spend five months working in sub zero conditions above Lake Ellsworth - a lake buried beneath 3.4km of ice.
 
The project requires extreme action to uncover the untouched and mysterious habitat.
 
Dr Woodward said: “Scientists would love to know what is living in these lake environments, and what this might tell us about possible life in extraterrestrial environments such as the frozen moons of Jupiter.”
 
The first task will be to identify the best point of entry to Lake Ellsworth.
 
Dr Woodward will undertake a seismic survey, which entails a seismic technique that uses high explosives to generate a controlled noise source. Sound waves from the explosive shot travel through the ice and are reflected from the ice-water interface (the surface of the lake). Some waves will travel through the water and will then be reflected from the water-bed interface. The echoes that return to the surface are recorded by a series of highly sensitive microphones that are attached to a computer that will allow the depth of the lake to be mapped.

After the survey

After this seismic survey, the researchers hope to attract more funding to the £600,000 that has already been funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
 
More funding will allow the researchers to use a hot-water drill to bore through the ice and access the lake, after which a slim line robot will then be lowered into the depths. It will carry sensors to detect life and collect sediment samples.
 
Dr Woodward commented: “There is competition to be the first team to explore a subglacial lake. A team from Italy would like to explore Lake Concordia and a team from Russia plans to extract water from Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake identified. It is vitally important to identify suitable drill sites, and then to plan to conduct the access experiments in an environmentally friendly way so as not to risk contaminating such pristine and isolated environments’’
 
Over 150 sub glacial lakes have been identified in Antarctica, cut off from the outside world by thick caps of ice for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Any life forms will have had to adapt to complete darkness, very few nutrients, crushing water pressures and isolation from the atmosphere. 
 
 

You’ve read it. Now review it.

Back to top

Back to top