Preface - Antarctica

Preface - Antarctica

Antarctica is home to more than 70 lakes that exist thousands of feet under the surface of the continental ice sheet, including one under the South Pole itself. Lake Vostok, beneath Russia's Vostok Station, is one of the largest of these sub glacial lakes hidden beneath 12,000 feet of ice. The Lake, a body of water the size of Lake Ontario, is over 155 miles long, 31 miles wide, and contains around 1250 cubic miles of water, a good match for Lake Superior.

There are more than 145 other lakes trapped under the ice. Vostok's two largest neighbours are referred to as 900E (named after the longitude) and the other Sovetskaya, named after the Russian research station coincidentally built above it. Like Lake Vostok, their icy waters have been sealed off from the surface for over 35 million years. The 900E Lake has a surface area of 2,000km2, which is about the size of Rhode Island, and is second only to Lake Vostok's 14,000km2 surface area. Sovetskaya Lake was calculated to be about 1,600 km2. Both are sealed beneath more than two miles of ice. The lake depths, estimated to be at least 900 meters, were calculated from gravity data taken during aerial surveys in 2000 and 2001.