Russian scientists briefly pierced the two-mile-thick veil over a freshwater lake hidden beneath Antarctica's ice sheet for millions of years, polar researchers announced Wednesday.
Scientists hope samples of Lake Vostok, a body the size of Lake Ontario, will yield signs of previously undiscovered life and new clues about the history of the planet. The lake is believed to have been covered by ice for up to 30 million years.
Russian researchers completed the drilling effort Sunday, reaching the lake at a depth of 3,769 meters (2.3 miles) into the ice, the St. Petersburg-based Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute reported.
When the ice above the lake was breached, lake water was sucked up into the bore and froze, the Russians said. That will allow researchers to take samples back to the surface without contaminating the lake below, they said.
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well that definitely put a new spin on ice fishing...
probally pull up frozen alien dna sample which laid dormant for millions of years frozen until shipped to a laboratory where its slide examinations are inadvertently left under warm lamp rays of a microscope where it grows into a ugly jelly monster creature and start eating humans...this is just another scary movie waiting to happen...
...what about radioactive tsunami debris monster of the pacific...
...the british petroleum shrimp monsters lurking in the gulf...
Godzilla took a chill pill....
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around ice more than two miles thick.
what does it sound like if you say boc-tok five times really fast???
Let us know, would ya, darlin'?
I'd be interested in knowing...if it's printable of course...lol
Roflmao @ mmmm, and i was thinking earlier how much i missed ice fishing! Not any more thanks.
yep...look how huge that boc-tok is in that picture...
I think I had boctok at a Minsk bakery one time.
Tin soldiers and Boctok's coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Boctok
Gonna get down to it
Boctok is gunning us down
Should have been Boctok long ago
What if you Boctok and
Boctok Boctok on the ground
How can you Boctok when you know
Tin Boctok and Boctok Boctok
We're Boctok Boctok Boc
This Boctok I hear the Boctok
Four Boctoks in Boctok Boctok
Can you imagine how good the fishing is,that lakes not been fished in 2 million years. Them fish have to be starveing.
It was 30 million years gung. I personally can't wait to find out if they find any new species.
reminds me of that movie piranha...
not new species.. a very old one.. and it's hungry..
Now gung wher the he#l have you been the fiah are starving ill give them a slim jim!!!
Im alittle bit buzzed right now i took some vicatin whewww man
@Roadsniper NO its more like where the heck you been man
Not me.
Troll.
And now we have a little clue where the recently giant shrimp came from eh?
And why is was so pale...and dead...
Mary's got a point, though...who knows what's lurking down there....?
boctok is in the Cyrillic alphabet. Changed into letters of our Roman alphabet it would be vostok – with the s pronounced unvoiced as in "start". Vladivostok comes from it. Vostok means East or the East. Vladivostok means sort of Lord of the East- got this from short internet search (plus some of my own knowledge of Russian)
thanks sonny...however the english "b" for the russian "v" is more fun...just like the english "o" for the english "u"...