Scientists find preserved animal carcasses in Antarctic lake

It is good to see these water time  capsules been sampled.  We may get ancient DNA to compare with present DNA.  That is certainly worthwhile even if it proves little change.

A more interesting trick would be to actually drive a vertical shaft and set up a work station.  3,500 feet is not that bad and within the capacity of our tech.  Using a pressure head that can cut through the ice followed by a stack of concrete ring sections should work.  An initial slip ring could allow advances to happen in steps by heating the surfaces.

All good though.






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Scientists find preserved animal carcasses in mysterious Antarctic lake 'twice the size of Manhattan' buried under 3,500 feet of ice

• The pool of water is officially known as Subglacial Lake Mercer

• Measures nearly 62 square miles, and was discovered more than a decade ago 

• Has only been spotted on satellite images but has never been explored

• Initial tests showed the water was 'as clean as filtered water can get' 

By Mark Prigg For Dailymail.com

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6608149/Scientists-animal-carcasses-Antarctic-lake-buried-3-500-feet-ice.html

 

Published: 14:53 EST, 18 January 2019 | Updated: 14:58 EST, 18 January 2019

Scientists in Antarctica have found preserved carcasses of tiny animals in a mysterious lake buried under more than 3,500 feet of ice.

Mercer Subglacial Lake is a hydraulically active lake that lies more 1000m beneath the Whillans Ice Plain, a fast moving section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. 

Researchers managed to drill into the lake for the first time earlier this year, and have now revealed they found signs of life.

According to Nature, researchers found the remains of crustaceans and a tardigrade, or 'water bear' in the icy depths.

They even say life could still exist there. Scroll down for video 


 

Al Gagnon (left) and SALSA Marine Techs Michael Tepper-Rasmussen and Jack Greenberg (center and right) test the WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Gravity Corer that will be used to collect 10-foot and 20-foot sediment cores from Mercer Subglacial Lake. Scientists in Antarctica have finally drilled into a mysterious lake buried under more than 3,500 feet of ice in a bid to find out if life exists there.

WHAT IS LAKE MERCER? 

The pool of water, known as Subglacial Lake Mercer, covers 160 square kilometres, twice the size of Manhattan.

It might be 10–15 metres deep 

Despite temperatures that are likely to stay below 0 °C, the lake doesn't freeze, because of the intense pressure from the ice above. 

Antarctica conceals more than 400 lakes beneath its ice 

Discovering the animals was 'fully unexpected', David Harwood, a micro-palaeontologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who is part of the expedition — known as SALSA (Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access), told Nature.

The team are unsure how the creatures got there, but one theory is that they inhabited ponds and streams in the Transantarctic Mountains 50km away during brief warm periods, which occurred in the past 10,000 years or 120,000 years ago, and somwhow were transported to Mercer Lake.

However, when the climate cooled, the animals were left trapped in an icy grave. 

The pool of water, known as Subglacial Lake Mercer, measures nearly 62 square miles, was discovered more than a decade ago through satellite images but has never been explored.   

It is one of 400 lakes beneath the Antarctic ice - and experts say any life there could raise hopes of finding similar organisms deep inside Mars or on the ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

The team now plans to sequence scraps of DNA from the carcasses to work out if the animals are salt or freshwater species.

It could also reveal if they survived in the underwater environment once the ice returned to lock them in.