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The hunt for life below Antarctic ice

In the next few weeks, researchers in Antarctica will drill through 1,100 metres of ice into a lake that has remained sealed for millennia. Here’s what they hope to find.
By
  1. Douglas Fox

    1. Douglas Fox is a journalist in northern California.

Near the Whillans drill site toward the Trans Antarctic mountains along the edge of the ice shelf

A perpetually dark landscape of lakes and rivers exists underneath Antarctica’s thick glacial blanket. Credit: J. T. Thomas

At a remote camp just 600 kilometres from the South Pole, the race is on to melt 28,000 kilograms of snow. Within the next two weeks, a team of technicians will use that hot water to melt a hole through 1,100 metres of ice, straight down to the bottom of the Antarctic ice sheet. Their quarry is a hidden lake that has been cut off from the rest of the world for thousands of years. The life they expect to find there inhabits one of the most isolated ecosystems on Earth.

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Nature 564, 180-182 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07669-3

References

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