Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes
Trapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet lie over 400 subglacial lakes, which are considered to be extreme, isolated, yet viable habitats for microbial life. The physical conditions within subglacial lakes are critical to evaluating how and where life may best exist. Here, we propose that Earth'...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.2102.10007 2023-05-15T13:37:51+02:00 Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes Couston, Louis-Alexandre Siegert, Martin 2021 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2102.10007 https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.10007 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc3972 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY Fluid Dynamics physics.flu-dyn Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2021 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2102.10007 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc3972 2022-03-10T14:52:45Z Trapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet lie over 400 subglacial lakes, which are considered to be extreme, isolated, yet viable habitats for microbial life. The physical conditions within subglacial lakes are critical to evaluating how and where life may best exist. Here, we propose that Earth's geothermal flux provides efficient stirring of Antarctic subglacial lake water. We demonstrate that most lakes are in a regime of vigorous turbulent vertical convection, enabling suspension of spherical particulates with diameters up to 36 micrometers. Thus, dynamic conditions support efficient mixing of nutrient- and oxygen-enriched meltwater derived from the overlying ice, which is essential for biome support within the water column. We caution that accreted ice analysis cannot always be used as a proxy for water sampling of lakes beneath a thin (<3.166 kilometers) ice cover, because a stable layer isolates the well-mixed bulk water from the ice-water interface where freezing may occur. : This article is published in Science Advances and supplementary material is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/7/8/eabc3972/DC1 Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Antarctic The Antarctic |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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language |
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topic |
Fluid Dynamics physics.flu-dyn Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
Fluid Dynamics physics.flu-dyn Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences Couston, Louis-Alexandre Siegert, Martin Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes |
topic_facet |
Fluid Dynamics physics.flu-dyn Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences |
description |
Trapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet lie over 400 subglacial lakes, which are considered to be extreme, isolated, yet viable habitats for microbial life. The physical conditions within subglacial lakes are critical to evaluating how and where life may best exist. Here, we propose that Earth's geothermal flux provides efficient stirring of Antarctic subglacial lake water. We demonstrate that most lakes are in a regime of vigorous turbulent vertical convection, enabling suspension of spherical particulates with diameters up to 36 micrometers. Thus, dynamic conditions support efficient mixing of nutrient- and oxygen-enriched meltwater derived from the overlying ice, which is essential for biome support within the water column. We caution that accreted ice analysis cannot always be used as a proxy for water sampling of lakes beneath a thin (<3.166 kilometers) ice cover, because a stable layer isolates the well-mixed bulk water from the ice-water interface where freezing may occur. : This article is published in Science Advances and supplementary material is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/7/8/eabc3972/DC1 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Couston, Louis-Alexandre Siegert, Martin |
author_facet |
Couston, Louis-Alexandre Siegert, Martin |
author_sort |
Couston, Louis-Alexandre |
title |
Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes |
title_short |
Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes |
title_full |
Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes |
title_fullStr |
Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes |
title_sort |
dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in antarctic subglacial lakes |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2102.10007 https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.10007 |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc3972 |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2102.10007 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc3972 |
_version_ |
1766098273591885824 |