blog: Frozen Land O’ Lakes
A new survey of eastern Antarctica has revealed a surprising find: two lakes buried beneath a 4-kilometer-thick ice sheet that rival the famous Lake Vostok in size. The lakes may hold exotic life, and their position along ancient fault lines could shed light on how a nearby mountain range formed. Earth scientists have so far spied about 145 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Sandwiched between the ice above and bedrock below, the lakes stay liquid due to a combination of geothermal heat and the crushing pressure of the ice sheet. Lake Vostok, by far the largest of these lakes, is well-mapped, and a Russian team is now drilling through its ice cap in hopes of finding life inside. But scientists know little about most of the region’s lakes, spotted only from sparse radar surveys.
