Antarctica’s Lake Vostok, located 4 miles beneath the ice and heated by geothermal activity, has spread quickly through the news in recent days. For an estimated 20 million years this remote body of water remained preserved from outside contact. Russian scientists, after two decades of drilling, finally reached the lake on February 5, 2012. They will return during the next Antarctic research season to collect water samples and other data.
The stakes in the drilling of Lake Vostok couldn’t be higher. Many in the science community believe the lake supports microbes or similar organisms—which have already been found in the surrounding accretion ice—further demonstrating that life can survive even in the harshest of environments. More, the conditions at Lake Vostok emulate Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's satellite Enceladus, offering the best evidence yet as to whether life exists on other planets.
As this modern day space race continues, the clamor of scientific achievement has drown out important ethical questions. Switchback Travel spoke with Professor James White, Director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado, for the story behind the story:
What kind of oversight governs scientific exploration like the drilling of Lake Vostok?
There is an Antarctic treaty. It’s pretty unique, an international treaty governing Antarctic research. It has specific requirements for anybody working there, and the Russians have had to file the equivalent of impact statements.
The Russians use kerosene and antifreeze to keep the drill hole open, but started taking measures when they got close to ensure the lake water doesn’t get contaminated. Has the Russian team been careful enough?
They are very good scientists and they don’t want to contaminate the lake as much as anybody else. They are being as careful as they can possibly be. Having said that, it’s a really difficult thing to do, dropping something down four kilometers under the ice. It’s difficult to probe something into a lake and not mess with it. These are remote devices and it’s not easy.
There is straightforward protocol regarding accretion ice, and we have a decent idea as to how many microbes are in that ice. The suggested protocol is not to contaminate any more than what is in the accretion ice. When drilling, you have to make sure that the fluid pressure is lower than the atmospheric pressure so lake water rushes up into the hole. Deep drills have been stuck over the years, and you can freeze a drill solid. The key is keeping the pressure up without too much pressure.
Regarding science and environmental responsibility, is it always best to proceed with this type scientific exploration?
I was on a committee at the National Academy of Sciences, and we looked at this situation and made recommendations. Something that is really a truism is we don’t know how to do this perfectly. And we are never going to know how to do it perfectly until we try. We would probably be waiting forever. From a scientific point of view that is unacceptable because we won’t be increasing our understanding.
One of the troubling aspects of this is that Lake Vostok is the biggest lake, the “crown jewel.” Going into Vostok first might be risky. All things being equal, it would be better to try out the technology on the smaller coastal lakes. The Antarctic ice sheet has its own drainage system, just like the mountains, and the basic idea is the closer you get to the coast, the closer you get to the bottom of the drainage basin. By starting with the smaller lakes you wouldn’t risk messing up the other lakes upstream.
You have to make the logical and careful choice of where to go. The Russians have been at Lake Vostok since the 1950s, and there is a large amount of scientific pride, national pride, and policies/ethical/moral things that map on top of the scientific things. I don’t expect the Russians not to do it.
You describe places like Lake Vostok as the last frontiers on the planet. What are the others?
There are still places on the bottom of the ocean, particularly under the Arctic sea ice. There are very few places we have gone that we haven’t found life. There is probably life deep below our feet that we haven’t explored or looked at. Life is pretty amazing. It has the ability to survive and thrive in the harshest of conditions.