Data presented at a European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria suggests that there might be a massive lake hidden underneath Antarctic ice. Scientists believe that this lake could contain ancient life forms that have been preserved for millions of years.
In 2013, a team of Bowling Green University scientists discovered more than 3,500 DNA sequences spanning bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes and life forms never before seen on Earth after making their way deep into the two-mile Antarctic ice of Lake Vostok.
Lake Vostok is the largest known subglacial lake in Antarctica, measuring at least 149 miles long and 31 miles wide. However, experts dismissed the findings due to doubts regarding the samples and methodology.
Now, a new discovery reveals another massive lake - second only to Lake Vostok - under the Antarctic ice sheet, suggesting that the earlier dismissal might have been preemptive. Satellite images revealed grooves on the surface of ice that resemble those present on other subglacial bodies of water.
"We've seen these strange, linear channels on the surface, and are inferring these are above massive, 1,000-kilometer-long channels, and there's a relatively large subglacial lake there too," said Martin Siegert, a member of the team that discovered the possible lake and a researcher from Imperial College London.
The lake measures approximately 62 miles long and 6.2 miles wide and possesses long canyons and channels that reach out from the region for more than 21 miles, making their way to the eastern Antarctic coast on Princess Elizabeth Land.
"It's the last un-researched part of Antarctica, so it's very exciting news, but it's still tentative pending full confirmation," said Bryn Hubbard of the University of Aberystwyth.
Siegert said that collaborators from China and the United States have gathered aerial ice-penetrating radar data from the region that will help shed light on the features that lie underneath the ice.
"We're meeting in May to look at the data," he said. "It will be a very good test of our hypothesis about the lake and channels."
The presence of subglacial lakes under Antarctic ice is important not only for the discovery of new life forms on Earth but also for advancing our understanding of the relationship between Antarctic ice sheets and climate change.
