Race to drill into Antarctic lake

Russian scientists are attempting to beat US and UK rivals to be first to drill an Antarctic sub-glacial lake. The team has been drilling down to Lake Vostok, the largest of more than 100 bodies of liquid water buried under Antarctica's ice. The lake has been sealed off from the surface for millennia, so it may contain life forms new to science. Scientists are racing against the fast-approaching bitter cold and total darkness of Antarctic winter. However, Prof John Priscu, who is in touch with the Russian researchers, told BBC News: "They are very, very close." According to Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersburg, the team began drilling on 2 January and has been progressing by about 1.75m (5.7ft) per day. On 12 January, the team halted activity to take measurements and to switch drills from a large ice-coring drill to a smaller thermal drill designed to melt through the final five to 10 metres (16 to 32ft) of ice. Prof Priscu from the University of Montana, US, who has been communicating with the Russian team, said this had been the plan, but cautioned that this could change due to conditions in the field. Lake Vostok, which is about the same size as Lake Ontario, is buried beneath nearly 4km of ice in the middle of the East Antarctic ice sheet. The lake itself is about the same age as the ice that covers it - 14 million years old. The lake water is thought to be younger - tens or hundreds of thousands of years old - because water may flow between different sub-glacial lakes. It may host cold-loving organisms that have been left to their own evolutionary devices for millennia. The Russians have friendly competition from US and British teams. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (Bas) are hoping to begin their project to drill into Lake Ellsworth in Antarctica later this year. Temperatures at the Lake Vostok site have already dropped below minus 40C and the researchers must get out while aircraft can still operate. However, even if they do break through, the Russian scientists will not be able to sample the lake water until late 2012, Scientific American reports.