Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok
More than 70 subglacial lakes have now been identified by both airborne radioecho sounding (RES) and satellite altimetry underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. See Figure 1. The largest of these is Lake Vostok, located in the interior of the plateau of East Antarctica. It lies under 4 km of ice wi...
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University of Canterbury
2004
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ftunivcanter:oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/13997 2023-05-15T13:49:08+02:00 Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok Grimaldi, Wray 2004 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13997 English en eng University of Canterbury http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13997 All Rights Reserved Theses / Dissertations 2004 ftunivcanter 2022-09-08T13:37:08Z More than 70 subglacial lakes have now been identified by both airborne radioecho sounding (RES) and satellite altimetry underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. See Figure 1. The largest of these is Lake Vostok, located in the interior of the plateau of East Antarctica. It lies under 4 km of ice with an average depth of more than 500m. It measures 240 km long, 50 km wide and is 14,000 km2 in area, its water volume is estimated to be 2000 km3. These dimensions put it as one of the ten largest lakes in the world. It is theorized that the lake water is maintained in a liquid state by geothermal heating, pressure and insulation by the overlying ice. The presence of a layer of sediments on the lake bottom plus the findings of microbial forms in ice cores taken from above the lake suggest that life forms may yet be found that have been isolated from any outside interference for at least 1 million years. Other/Unknown Material Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Ice Sheet University of Canterbury, Christchurch: UC Research Repository Antarctic East Antarctica East Antarctic Ice Sheet Lake Vostok ENVELOPE(106.000,106.000,-77.500,-77.500) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Canterbury, Christchurch: UC Research Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcanter |
language |
English |
description |
More than 70 subglacial lakes have now been identified by both airborne radioecho sounding (RES) and satellite altimetry underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. See Figure 1. The largest of these is Lake Vostok, located in the interior of the plateau of East Antarctica. It lies under 4 km of ice with an average depth of more than 500m. It measures 240 km long, 50 km wide and is 14,000 km2 in area, its water volume is estimated to be 2000 km3. These dimensions put it as one of the ten largest lakes in the world. It is theorized that the lake water is maintained in a liquid state by geothermal heating, pressure and insulation by the overlying ice. The presence of a layer of sediments on the lake bottom plus the findings of microbial forms in ice cores taken from above the lake suggest that life forms may yet be found that have been isolated from any outside interference for at least 1 million years. |
format |
Other/Unknown Material |
author |
Grimaldi, Wray |
spellingShingle |
Grimaldi, Wray Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok |
author_facet |
Grimaldi, Wray |
author_sort |
Grimaldi, Wray |
title |
Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok |
title_short |
Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok |
title_full |
Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok |
title_fullStr |
Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok |
title_full_unstemmed |
Microbial considerations of Lake Vostok |
title_sort |
microbial considerations of lake vostok |
publisher |
University of Canterbury |
publishDate |
2004 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13997 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(106.000,106.000,-77.500,-77.500) |
geographic |
Antarctic East Antarctica East Antarctic Ice Sheet Lake Vostok |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic East Antarctica East Antarctic Ice Sheet Lake Vostok |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/10092/13997 |
op_rights |
All Rights Reserved |
_version_ |
1766250868036861952 |