How Lake Vostok could transform our understanding of life as we know it

"This is scientific exploration, this is work that no one has ever done before," Martin Siegert, head of the University of Edinburgh's School of Geosciences, told Reuters.

"This is probably one of the last frontiers on our planet that remains largely unknown to us," said Siegert, who is leading a British expedition to explore Lake Ellsworth in West Antarctica in 2012-2013.

Experts say the ice sheet acts like a blanket, trapping in the Earth's geothermal heat and preventing Antarctic lakes from freezing.

If there is life in Vostok and other ice-bound lakes, it is unlikely to be anything more complicated than single-cell organisms adapted to survive in the high-pressure, sunless environment, Siegert said.

"It is just imagination, we don't really know until we go in," he said.

Beneath the vast white landscape, Lake Vostok is the deepest and most isolated of Antarctica's subglacial lakes. Its size compares to Siberia's Lake Baikal or one of the Great Lakes, increasing the chance of biodiversity in its waters.

Scientists estimate the body of water is roughly 1 million years old and supersaturated with oxygen, resembling no other known environment on Earth.

John Priscu of Montana State University suspects that an oasis of life may lurk there, teeming around thermal vents.

"I hope that they can confirm unequivocally that there is indeed microbial life in the lake," said Priscu, the chief scientist on the U.S. project to probe subglacial Lake Whillans.

Alien Life

Russia has dreamed of uncovering the lake's secrets since the 1996 discovery that the low-lying buildings and radio towers of its Antarctic station sit above the ancient waters.

But the drive to explore this unspoilt environment is not without controversy.

The Russian borehole, pumped full of kerosene and freon to keep it from freezing shut, hangs like a needle over the pristine lake. "The ice core at Vostok is there and it won't go away because it is full of anti-freeze," said Siegert.

In a bid to address international concerns, Russia halted drilling for several years to devise a cleaner method in 2000.

It used a smaller thermal drill to punch through to the lake and back pressured the borehole to force lake water to rise up into it, effectively sipping up samples from the lake's surface.

Russia will core out the frozen sample next season.

 (Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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