Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Previous editions
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
A LAKE "frozen in time" for hundreds of thousands of years beneath Antarctica could contain "unique forms of life" that give clues to life on Mars.
A team of scientists has been given the go-ahead to explore the lake described as "one of the planet’s last great frontiers".
Buried under 3km of ice, the lake has been sealed from the outside world until now, and it likely to be home to unknown, unspoiled life-forms.
The team hopes the exploration of the waters, which have been shielded from the world’s pollution by the aged ice sheet, will yield vital clues about climate change, future sea-level rise, and even the nature of life on Mars.
The Natural Environment Research Council in Britain has awarded £6 million (€6.7m) to a consortium of multidisciplinary research centres, including the University of Bristol, for the work to develop the technologies needed for the project over the next five years.
During the 2012-2013 winter season researchers will go into West Antarctica to sample water from the lake in the search of "tiny life forms never before seen", and extract sediment from the lake bed to find clues as to how the climate has changed.
Professor Martyn Tranter from the University of Bristol will be analysing some of the water from the lake.
"We are all very excited at the prospect of seeing what’s going on down there," he said yesterday.
"Any microbes feeding on material at the bottom of the lake will be giving off a particular chemical signature that we hope to pick up in the water. If we find anything living beneath the ice it will not only be very exciting in itself, but could have implications for life in similar icy environments, such as on other planets."
Bristol University spokeswoman Cherry Lewis said: "It is frozen in time. When we talk about life on other planets we’re talking about mainly micro-organisms, and primarily about the planet Mars.
"However, some of the other moons have similar icy environments. It is possible we will find higher life-forms down there. It’s a complete unknown at the moment, which is why it is so exciting."
Consortium leader Professor Martin Siegert from the University of Edinburgh, who conceived the project while working at the University of Bristol, said: "This is a benchmark in polar exploration — our team will be the first to explore this ancient lake. It is a dark, cold place that has been sealed from the outside world and it’s likely to contain unique forms of life.
"We hope to discover more about how life can exist in extreme environments and how Antarctica has changed in the past — which might help us understand more about other places on Earth."
In such an extreme environment, the mere presence of life in itself would be a major scientific discovery, the team warns. But there are "very strong reasons" to expect that such micro-organisms would have adapted to the hostile habitat.
David Blake, who is head of technology and engineering at the British Antarctic Survey said: "This project is a great scientific challenge and the technology required to drill 3km through the ice without contaminating the lake is equally ambitious.
"Over the next few years we will build a hot water drill and probe, and make preparations to transport a sophisticated operation deep into the interior of West Antarctica. We really are at the frontiers of scientific exploration."
The funding was awarded following the success of an International Polar Year project to map the subglacial Lake Ellsworth last year.
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