Glaciologist John Priscu has just completed a 48-hour tortuous journey from Antarctica to the west coast of the United States. Even now, he is still struggling with the unbearable jet lag. However, fatigue did not hide Priscu's excitement.
After several weeks of high-intensity field work in Antarctica, the Priscu research team became the first Antarctic expedition to discover life deep in the icy continental lake. "Life is indeed hidden deep in Whelansi Lake, and evidence shows that there is a huge wetland ecosystem under the ice sheet, and the microbial system is active." He said.
The water body of this lake is about 60 square kilometers and is located on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in western Antarctica. In order to reach this lake hidden under ice, Priscu, a glaciologist at Montana State University and colleagues had to drill through 800 meters of ice.
The team used environmentally friendly hot water drilling technology to break through the ice and continued to dig. On January 28, they finally reached their destination. However, the researchers found that the depth of this water body is only 2 meters or a little deeper, which is much shallower than the 10-25 meters shown by the seismic survey results. However, Priscu noted that this lake may have deeper areas.
The Priscu research team dived a camera down the borehole to ensure that the borehole was wide enough to allow the sampling device to safely penetrate and return. The test proved that the borehole width was appropriate, so Priscu and colleagues began intensive sampling. The researchers collected a total of about 30 liters of lake water and collected 8 sediment core samples from the bottom of the lake.
After these precious samples were taken out, Priscu and colleagues quickly conducted on-site research, and the mysterious appearance of the lake under the ice began to slowly reveal under the microscope. The study found that both the water body and sediments of Whelansi Lake contain a large number of microorganisms, and these microorganisms can survive without sunlight.
The calculation results of the researchers show that each milliliter of lake water contains about 1,000 bacteria, which is equivalent to 1/10 of the ocean's rich microbial population. Priscu also mentioned that these bacteria show good growth in petri dishes.
"Great, these findings are extremely important," said Martin Siegert, an Antarctic research scholar at the University of Bristol in the UK. Siegert is also the captain of the British Ellsworth Lakes expedition team, which is another sub-ice lake in Antarctica. In December last year, Siegert led the expedition team to come here, but unfortunately, the technical difficulties made their inspections frustrated.
Next, scientists will further study the under-ice life excavated by the US expedition to determine its DNA sequence and other natural characteristics. "Basic work takes about at least a month." Priscu said, "Of course, we are eager to know immediately who they are and what their life cycle is."
The researchers hope to be able to understand the survival strategies of microbes under ice and to discover clues that may imply the possible form of extraterrestrial life. For example, it is believed that Europa has a vast underground ocean, and in this extreme environment, similar life may exist.
Of course, without sunlight, photosynthesis cannot take place, and bacteria from Lake Whelanth can only obtain energy from other sources. The food source may be organic matter, or similar to the "energy nutrient" substances found near gold mines and deep-sea thermal springs. Bacteria may also rely on chemical reactions to survive, such as minerals in Antarctic bedrock and dissolved in lake water. Of carbon dioxide.
"We can glimpse a corner of the world under the ice of Antarctica, and I'm sure our conclusions can change the way people look at this continent." Priscu said.
Background link
For the Antarctic continent, the winter of 2012 was a busy research season-a total of three independent research teams hoped to bring back evidence of the existence of organisms from lakes buried deep in the ice. The three research teams have their own sorrows and joys. In December 2012, due to technical problems, the British Antarctic expedition team attempting to drill through Elsworth Lake under the glacier was forced to suspend its mission. January this year was a harvest month, and the Russians finally got their first sample from Lake Vostok. The US research team also announced on the 28th that it has successfully retrieved the first sediment and water samples from the Whelan Lake ice flow.
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