Now that drilling has reached the lake, enough of the kerosene that keeps the two and a half mile hole from freezing has been extracted for the water to naturally rise a bit up the hole. That water will then be left to freeze over the winter, and extracted when scientists return next season. This ice plug method will allow scientists to analyze Vostok's water without risking contaminating the lake.
The thermal drill head will be fitted with a camera. They are able to drill around four meters a day.
The cryobot was invented by German physicist Karl Philberth, who first demonstrated it in the 1960s as part of the International Glaciological Greenland Expedition (EGIG), achieving drilling depths in excess of 1,000 meters. In 1973 British scientists in Antarctica performed airborne ice-penetrating radar survey and detected a possible lake.  In 1991, the European remote sensing satellite ERS-1 confirmed the 1973 discovery of a large lake below four kilometers of ice, named Lake Vostok. The lake is thought to be uncontaminated. NASA was planning to use a cryobot to explore the lake, which is the fifth largest freshwater lake in the world. The lake may offer a glimpse into what types of microbes lived thousands of years ago as its ecosystem has been cut off from the outside world 15 million years ago. Cryobots have been tested in Antarctica as prototypes for a space probe that may someday penetrate the icy surface of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and explore the liquid water ocean thought to be present below the ice, which may harbour extraterrestrial life
After decades of drilling , Russian scientists have finally managed to pierce through Antarctica’s ice sheet to reveal the secrets of a unique sub-glacial lake, Vostok, that has been sealed there for the past 20 million years, a scientific source said on Monday.
“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake,” the source said.
Explorers hope Lake Vostok, which is the largest of Antarctica's buried network of icebound lakes and also one of the largest lakes in the world, could reveal new forms of life and show how life evolved before the ice age.
Originally posted by jazz10
reply to post by KillShotMi
WOAAHHHH Thats a bang out of order statement you made there. Arken is well aware i am posting and when he asks me not to i wont. The reason i post the links to my thread is so i dont jam up his with pages of what i have found. Ask him yourself before you go flapping your gums at me trying to dis me. If you bothered to read what i had put in the thread then maybe you would have an inkling what i was on about.
As for your comment and considering your registering date would lead me to think of someone using alternative accounts.
As for ruining this thread? Nah im not i am actually bringing to the table what people like you overlook. You dont dig, you dont research, you dont try to make connections and you take everything you are told/ shown as facts without considering anything for yourself.
In relation to this thread.
I happen to think that there is something they are clearly not telling us about. 20 years drilling in the "hope" of finding? They dont drill for oil in the hope of finding because they already know. Do you understand what i am getting at here?
20yrs of drilling on a whim for microbial and bacterial lifeforms.....and you are buying that are you?
For the record. I AINTedit on 6-2-2012 by jazz10 because: (no reason given)
With the current events happening at Lake Vostok, an old theory saying that German Nazis may have built a secret base there as early as the 1930s, has resurfaced.
It is thought that towards the end of the Second World War, the Nazis moved to the South Pole and started constructing a base at Lake Vostok. In 1943, Grand Admiral Karl Dontiz was quoted saying “Germany's submarine fleet is proud that it created an unassailable fortress for the Fuehrer on the other end of the world,” in Antarctica.
Originally posted by RevelationGeneration
reply to post by grey580
I'd say no older than 4500 years. The great flood likely had something to do with giant Ice sheets, don't you think?
the lake has been breached, but the team are now checking the level of water in the borehole and readings from pressure sensors to confirm that the water did come from the lake and not a pocket of water in the ice above the lake. Ice temperatures rise as you go deeper into the ice sheet, and approach melting point just above the lake, so the fact that the team hit liquid water doesn't necessarily mean they've reached the lake.
"For the time being we are waiting for official confirmation," said the spokesperson. An announcement is expected within the next two days.
“Window” into the unknown peace of subglacial lake the east is opened
Today in Arctic and Antarctic NII (Scientific Research Institute) is obtained the following official communication from the chief of station the east of the composition of 57- y OF RAE A.M. Elagina and the chief of the glyatsio- borax force 57- y OF RAE N.I. vasileva.
On February 5 into 20.25 Moscow time at the Russian intracontinental Antarctic station the east occurred the event, whose expectation held in the stress the latter several months international scientific association and many domestic and foreign media: the specialists of the glyatsio- borax force 57- y of Russian Antarctic expedition perfected penetration into the relict waters of subglacial lake the east through the deep icy bore hole of 5G. The day before, on February 4 on the mark of the depth of bore hole 3766 m occurred the contact of mining drill with the aqueous lens. Evidence this the lower section of the icy core, extracted from this depth, became - the surface of lower 70 cm of core was otglazirovana in the manner that as if before the lift itself it was immersed in the water. In this case no channels or capillaries in tele- core visually it was observed. Specifically, this contact with the aqueous lens in the bore hole was erroneously perceived by some media for the real penetration into the aqueous layer of lake.
The subsequent descent of mining drill to the face of bore hole showed that the process of boring ice does not continue. The pump of mining drill, intended for the evacuation of borax liquid with the icy slime from the cutters of boring bit, began to pump into water into the internal volume of projectile. As it proved to be with the sequential lift of projectile, in the borax complex were raised about 30-40 l of water, which froze in the process of lift. Let us recall that a constant temperature of glacier in its upper part at the station the east composes - 55 By s. Proby “chilled” water were assembled into the special sterile laboratory ware. After this operation boring glacier was continued, and the contact of mining drill with the real aqueous body of subglacial lake next day occurred on the mark 3769,3 m. Sensors fixed the sharp jump of an increase in the pressure on the face and the moment of support during the rotation of the boring bit of projectile, after which by the chief of force N. BY I. Vasil'yev and by the leading engineer- boring master By v. M. Zubkov, which were at this time on watch, projectile was quickly raised to the surface. As this was assumed on that developed in 2000 in the St. Petersburg state mountain university and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the technology of ecologically clean penetration into the subglacial lake the east, the rise of water from the lake in the face part of the bore hole occurred at the height of approximately 30-40 m from the lower surface of glacier. Less dense how lake water, borax liquid, which consists of the mixture of kerosene and Freon, it became to rapidly rise along the shaft of borehole. As a result about one-and-a-half cubometers of this liquid took the shape through the upper surface of bore hole of special pans, established in the borax complex and then it was rolled away into the barrels. Thus, the theoretically forecast 11 years ago results were completely proven in practice.
After several hours before this salient event station the east for the first time visited the minister of natural resources and ecology of the Russian Federation of Yu. P.Trutnev and the leader of the Federal Service for hydrometeorology and monitoring of environment A.V.Frolov.
On February 6 took place final in this summer Antarctic season voyage to the station the east of aircraft DC-3 BT 67 “Of turboBasler”, on which entire personnel of glyatsio- borax force departed to the Russian Antarctic station progress for the subsequent landing onboard NES “academician Fedorov”. The arrival of participants in the project into Petersburg from the port Capetown on the scheduled flight is planned on February 24 of this year.
This reaching of Russian polar researchers and engineers became excellent gift to the day of Russian science, which our country notes on February 8.
Chief of the Russian Antarctic expedition
On the photo: Glyatsio- borax the force of station the east 57- y of the Russian Antarctic expedition
On February 8, 2012
Press service of AANII (Arctic and Antarctic Scientific Research Institute)
Originally posted by STJV844
Admiral Byrd already found significant information out there
Originally posted by interupt42
Looks like they contaminated the sample!!!!!
the initial water released from the lake was contaminated by drilling fluid.
"Lake Vostok is the crown jewel of lakes there," White said by telephone. "These are the last frontiers on the planet we are exploring, we really ought to be very careful."
Lukin said Russia had waited for several years for international approval of its drilling technology before proceeding to reach the lake. He said about 1.5 cubic metres of kerosene and freon poured up to the surface tanks from the boreshaft, proof that the lake water streamed up from underneath, froze and then blocked the hole, sealing off the chance that any toxic chemicals could contaminate.
Russian scientists will later remove the frozen sample for analysis in December when the next Antarctic summer season comes. They reached the lake just before they had to leave at the end of the Antarctic summer, as plunging temperatures halted air links.
Some scientists hope that studies of Lake Vostok and other subglacial lakes will advance knowledge of Earth's own climate and help predict its changes.
"It is an important milestone that has been completed and a major achievement for the Russians because they've been working on this for years," said Professor Martin Siegert, a leading scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, which is trying to reach another Antarctic subglacial lake, Lake Ellsworth.
"The Russian team share our mission to understand subglacial lake environments and we look forward to developing collaborations with their scientists and also those from the U.S. and other nations, as we all embark on a quest to comprehend these pristine, extreme environments," he said in an email.
The prospect of lakes hidden under Antarctic ice was first put forward by Russian scientist and anarchist revolutionary, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, at the end of the 19th century. Russian geographer Andrei Kapitsa noted the likely location of the lake and named it following Soviet Antarctic missions in the 1950s and 1960s, but it wasn't until 1994 that its existence was proven by Russian and British scientists.