Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Sample of hidden Antarctic lake presented

|
|
 
  
Published: Feb. 10, 2012 at 2:42 PM
Advertisement

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A water sample from Lake Vostok, hidden under Antarctic ice for millions of years, has been presented to Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, scientists say.

Russian officials confirmed Wednesday researchers at the Vostok station located on the ice sheet above had drilled down to the untouched Antarctic sub-glacial lake, RIA Novosti reported.

Just hours before the historic penetration, Russia's Natural Resource Minister Yury Trutnev arrived at the station to observe the climax of the project to drill through more than 12,000 feet into the lake.

On Friday, Trutnev arrived at a meeting with Putin and delivered a flask of water bearing a label reading "Lake Vostok, more than million years old, depth 3,769.3 meters, 5.12.11, Antarctic."

Scientists said Lake Vostok, the largest of Antarctica's buried network of icebound lakes, could reveal clues to how life evolved before the ice age.

The first sample from the lake's ancient waters has not yet been tested, researchers said.

Recommended Stories
© 2012 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Science News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Photoshop this huge manatee
Clear your desks, get out your pencils, and have your hot teacher smooth her skirt back down: it's...
Turns out judges don't like it so much when you lie to them: George Zimmerman bond revoked for lying...
Indiana church where congregation cheered as toddler sang "Ain't no homos going to make it to heaven,"...
"Chivalry isn't dead, you stupid biatch" and 50 other funniest tweets of all time
Happy 38th birthday, Alanis Morissette