On our planet there are still mysterious and unexplored places.In Science Daily Online we have approached the Nemo Point, the most inaccessible place on Earth or Antarctica, which although known since the eighteenth century was not really explored until the twentieth century.the frozen continent, one of the most amazing discoveries was that of a lake that remains hidden more than 3'6 km deep.Join us to know 10 Curiosities of the mysterious Lake Vostok, it has been under 15 million years under the ice .What can you hide?
They call it " the last mystery of the planet " and in some samples of water extracted frost inside a drill has been proven that the lake under the ice sheet is not sterile, but that it contains a unique ecosystem and more than 3,500 species have been identified by genetic analysis.Scientists have identified bacteria found in the digestive systems of fish, crustaceans and worms, also In two species of archaea and fungi, although the most mysterious fact related to the Vostok Lake is that it seems that the existence of something so large metal has been detected at the bottom of the lake that alters the regular magnetism.What can it be?
10 Curiosities of the mysterious Lake Vostok
If we could travel back in time and move to Antarctica 35 million years ago we would find a land of mild climate in the that various animals and plants lived.Once upon a time there was a decrease in the temperature of such magnitude that the ice covered the lake that had been connected to the Southern Ocean.It was "only" between 14 and 15 million years ago, the ice that had been intermittent on the lake became permanent due to a new drop in temperatures and the Vostok was plunged into darkness, subjected to the increasing pressure of the ice that covered it and completely isolated from the atmosphere.
1. Lake Vostok is named after the Russian base that was installed on the ice surface This in turn took the name of a ship called "Vostok" which means "East" or "East" in Russian and commanded one of the discoverers of Antarctica, Russian Admiral Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.
2.The first that suggested the existence of a subglacial lake in the Vostok area was Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer who studied the soundings of the Soviet expeditions that were made between 1959 and 1964 in order to measure the layer of ice.The existence of the lake was confirmed in 1993.
3.The Lake Vostok was formed approximately 60 million years ago due to a depression formed by moving and fracturing continental plates and is well below sea level, about 500 meters.
4.It is not the only subglacial lake on the Antarctic continent, but the largest of the 400 known.
5.The surface of the Lake Vostok is almost 4,000 meters below the ice surface.The lake is 250 km long and 50 km wide at the largest part, the depth being average of 432 meters.
6.To explain that the water of Lake Vostok remains liquid despite being under almost 4 km of ice there are four hypotheses:
- The first ensures that the lake's water is at-3ºC and if it is still a liquid state despite being below the freezing point, it is due to the pressure it supports due to the weight of the ice above it and that reaches 360 atmospheres.The ice with that pressure melts.
- The second says that it does not solidify at that temperature because the rocks under the lake are hot by the geothermal heat of the interior of the planet.
- La te Rcera hypothesis says that the ice cover could act as a kind of insulating blanket protecting the lake's water from the very low surface temperatures.
- The fourth and last one is that it has not yet had time to freeze after a period of weather tempered that ended 5,000 years ago.
7.At the Vostok base the lowest temperature on Earth was recorded:-89 ° C.In this climate scientists thought that the Lake Vostok it would not have life and it would be sterile, but it has been proven that it is not so.
8.In the analysis of the samples both psychophiles have been found, which are organisms that they live with extreme cold, such as thermophiles, which are organisms that live with heat.This fact has led them to think that there may be hydrothermal sources in the depths of the lake.
9.They have also found presence of both species Marine as freshwater, which supports the hypothesis that the lake was once connected to the ocean.
10.One of the current concerns of scientists is that the lake's water is not The Russian team uses antifreeze liquid to keep the research well open and other ways of doing so are being designed since the US National Research Council, which assumes that microbial life exists in the lake, believes it is necessary protect it from contamination.
With respect to the metallic object detected at the bottom of the lake and that produces the alteration in regular magnetism, scientists believe that can be treated of an aerolith or that the magnetic anomaly has nothing to do with the object and it is an effect produced by by the thinning of the earth's crust in that place, but as always, the supporters of the theory of the Ancient astronauts think it could be a "giant flying saucer." What do you think of the subject? If you want to know more about Antarctica, we invite you to read the post: 50 Fascinating Antarctic Curiosities | With Images.
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