Thursday, February 03, 2011

Deep below Antarctic ice, lake may soon see light

Michelle Yazvac
Blog #3


In this article scientists have discovered an area of water that's two miles below ice. What's even crazier is that it's about the size of New Jersey, making it the third largest lake in the world. They've spent a decade trying to devise a plan that would be considered safe of getting to it which is drilling. Now they're left with one-hundred feet. Some thought that went into consideration is what will happen when they've gone past those one-hundred feet. Some scientists say that the water will spew out like a shaken soft drink in a water bottle and cause damage. This is water that has been untouched for millions of years and they've already used fourteen million gallons kerosene and freon to unthaw the ice that sits above it. It's a race for the soviets to get to the lake just as it was when we were competing with them to get to the moon.
What I personally think is interesting about this event is how we have to interrupt a natural area just to research and find out more from this lake. It is certainly interesting that there is a lake the size of Jersey that has been unheard of until now but does drilling have to mean we need to use something environmentally unfriendly such as kerosene to melt the ice. From this article I can extend the fact that we're such curious beings that we can't let anything on this Earth go untouched. From the article scientists also stated that if the water leaked out (which there is about 5,400 cubic kilometers of water in the lake) it would become "degassed" and have entered out atmosphere. Scientists say there shouldn't be a disaster but could "set back plans by US and British scientists from two other Antarctic lakes in the coming years.

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