Lake Vostok with Ecosystem Isolated from Earth

The largest of the sub-ice lakes in Antarctica, Lake Vostok is located below Russia’s Vostok Station. Located in the central region of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the lake is a freshwater lake located at a depth of about 4000 meters from the surface of the ice sheet. This means that it is 500 meters below sea level. Lake Vostok is considered one of the most important geographical discoveries of the last century. Research shows that the lake has a diverse and different living environment.

Lake Vostok has hosted an ecosystem that has been isolated from the outside world for about 14 million years. The lake is still liquid and unfrozen. The lake, which has a surface area of ​​15,690 square kilometers, is estimated to have a volume of 5,400 cubic kilometers. The average depth of the lake is 432 meters and the deepest point of the lake is between 510-900 meters. It was discovered during seismic surveys between 1959-64.

Antarctica is one of the largest continents in the world and has a surface area of ​​approximately 14,107,637 square kilometers. Approximately 400 sub-glacial lakes have been identified on the Antarctic continent. Lake Vostok is the largest of these lakes, located in the central regions of the East Antarctic ice sheet. Lake Vostok contains the paleoclimatological records of the last 400 thousand years thanks to the ice layers on it. The lake water has been in an isolated state for 15 million to 25 million years.

Discovery of Lake Vostok

Scientist Andrei Kapiza, who worked at Vostok Station from 1955 to 1964, continued his research around Vostok station, using seismic measurements to determine the thickness of the ice sheet. As a result of the measurements, he discovered Lake Vostok, which he believed to be a large glacial lake. Later research supported this thesis but failed to prove it. According to official records, other information about Lake Vostok was collected by a Scottish research team in early 1974. This team was able to record the Vostok Lake with the wave movements attached to the radars as a result of seismic studies.

After these works, Lake Vostok went down in history as the oldest lake in the world that was untouched and managed to preserve itself unchanged. This information was first obtained as a result of measurements and radar statistics made by a Russian-British research team in 1996. A few years after Andrei Kapiza’s early work, in 1957 Soviet scientists went to Vostok Station to research the history of climate change and the problem of global warming. This research was an issue that interested everyone around the world. Scientists also made history by recording the lowest temperature in the world, -89.2 degrees.

Why Vostak Lake Doesn’t Freeze

The temperature of the water of Lake Vostok has been recorded as -3 degrees on average. Although this temperature is below the freezing point of the water, the lake water remains in liquid form. This is because it is located in a high pressure environment. The lake is located under an almost 4100 meter thick ice mass and the pressure on it is between 35-40 Megapascals. Although a depth of 3,623 meters was reached during the surveys, due to an international decision in 1998, the researchers stopped going deeper into Lake Vostok only 130 meters away. This decision was taken to prevent damage to the lake.

One of the reasons for stopping further drilling is because the use of kerosene and freon substances as preservatives to reach the lake water creates environmental pollution. In addition, bacteria that could reach the lake during the cutting of the ice sheet could damage the lake, research and future research. Subsequent investigations revealed that the last 60 meters of descent was nothing more than frozen Lake Vostok water. Today, much information about Lake Vostok has been obtained by investigating the frozen water reached at this depth.

However, St. The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg resumed the process of drilling deeper into the ice sheet in 2011. In 2012, the entire ice sheet on Lake Vostok was punctured and went down into the lake. The research group, led by Scott Rogers, professor of biological sciences at Green State University in Ohio, who has been working on Lake Vostok for years, managed to reach the depths of the lake and collect samples in 2012. Turkish biologist Zeynep Koçer also made an amazing discovery as a member of this group.

Life at Lake Vostok

Research on Lake Vostok has revealed that it has a diverse and diverse living environment. Although the lake is located in deep darkness, it contains almost 50 times more oxygen than any freshwater source on earth. The reason for this high amount of oxygen is the high pressure above the lake. It has also been noted that this oxygen can move in gaseous form between ice floes.

Studies and ice floes samples taken from Lake Vostok show that thousands of different organisms continue to exist in the lake as a world heritage. Analyzing the DNA of some of the bacteria found in the samples, it was seen that they were very similar to those found in the digestive tracts of fish, shellfish and ringworms. However, despite some parasitic DNA, there is not enough evidence to say that marine life such as freshwater fish or crabs exist in the lake. This is a sign that there may be complex life forms that have not yet been discovered.

The Vostok habitat may have been protected from the rest of the world for 15 million years, enabling the evolution of life forms never before encountered. Of these organisms, 94% are bacteria, while 6% are eukaryotes. Most of them are mushrooms.

The diversity discovered in the lake has raised hopes that life may even exist on some planets with extremely harsh conditions. Jupiter’s moon Europa also stands out as one of these promising planets. Europa has oceans beneath its ice-covered atmosphere, according to geological evidence, and has more water than any ocean on Earth. With its surface completely covered in ice, Europa’s glacier is thought to be as thick as Lake Vostok. In 2013, Russian scientists spread information that new bacterial species were discovered in Lake Vostok. However, later research revealed that this information was wrong and work on Lake Vostok continues.