Lake Vostock - The things you wanted to know!

I am writing this a a brief to all those ATS'ers whom wish to know more about this lake, it myths and legends.

It will be over several parts; this is the first.

Lake Vostok
As it was so named by the Russians is 1957 as they were building a base almost dead centre of the antartic continent. The base it self is on the far eastern corner of the frozen Lake "Vostok".

The "Frozen" Lake is roughly 150 miles long and 25 miles wide and reports vary from 2 1/2 miles deep to 4 miles deep.

www.astrobiology.com...

www.70south.com...

Local information from residents of McMurdo Station (now supply base for vostok):
groups.msn.com...

The lake has been frozen for millions of years. However underneath all this snow and Ice; a freshwater lake has been found and confirmed. Back in 1996/7 this sub glacial lake was mapped out by radar (Echo Sounding) and satalite. This was a joint venture by Russians and the good old British (sorry had to that in!). through their experiments they confrimed it was more than likey several hundred million years old.

Once all the data collection was done and the reports were back the russians began to drill through the ice pack. Please remember this not a Black and Decker jobby here! the equipment used had to work in temperatures of at a least -120F!

They continued to drill till they got 120 metres from the water, then halted.

Why did they stop?
They stopped drilling because as stated previously this freshwater lake had been cut off from the surface for millions of years and some believed it to be more like hundreds of millions, but the this is/was enough time for it's own eco and biological systems to develop and if the russians had of penetrated the ice cap they would of contaminated the water and introduced this Subglacial Wonder Lake to 21st century contaminents.

So what, who cares?
When drilling these Ice Cores; they found definate life forms that are at least 200,000 years old (frozen)

OK lets change tak for just one minute. pleae bear with me i am off on a tangent.

Europa
Jupiter has a moon called Europa, it was discovered in the early 1600 by Galileo. is is a light brown coloured moon, which is believed to be "sea" ice. experts believe that eurpa ice packs flow and move and are considered to be active. This is evident by the cracks in the "Ice" the changing positations of them. This moon is the only other body we "Currently/confirmed" know about that actually has water.

Back on track - Nasa and the JPL state that Vostok is similiar to jupitors moon and exploration of vostok is a good practice and precurser for a mission to Europa.

This mission to Europa would be looking for signs of microbacterial- subglacial life forms - so you can see that vostok is of huge importance. Drawing a example from the recent mars missions they did everything humanly possible to prevent contamination on Mars which could affect its own biological and ecological status. Ergo - Europa.

astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov...

Experiments are currently taking place in norway. for a device called cryobot - more to be posted on this devise; l8r.

Magnetic Anomoly

When the survey took place in 96/97 the reseachers found a huge magnetic anomoly on the southeastern shoreline. News broke quickly and the rumour milling hereby began, large alien ship under the ice cap, a hole to the centre of the earth found, but the truth was far less dramatic. volcanic material causes the same "magnetic anomolies" as found, and due to disfigurement of the subsurface and surface structures it suggested that volcanic activity was the cause and this activity was also responcable for keeping the subglacial lake in its current form, as geothermal activity.

Other Interesting Stuff

Vostok over the last few years has been a hotbed of forum activity on websites such this one and ones of lesser standards

The pri reis maps that were found to have very acurate details of the geographical layout of antartica, some say within feet. see link:

www.vb-tech.co.za... Very interesting - as people argue that people must of lived there and to get such acurate measurements then they must of had the ability to have a "birds eye view"; ie UFO's- Aliens , flight etc....take your pick! interesting none the less.

More on Vostok and its myths; to be continued - but its 2:45am in the UK and i need some sleep.

Any questions u2u me in the mean time.

Best regards

Boondog