The Uncharted Waters Beneath The Ice
Geography and You|June 1-15, 2019
Antarctica, a vast expanse of ice and land, harbours one of the most intriguing features under its ice— the subglacial lakes. These isolated lakes form a part of the basal hydrological system and conceal unique biological ecosystems and climate records,thus prompting more scientific missions along with numerous challenges.
Cheryl A Noronha-D’Mello & Rahul Mohan
The Uncharted Waters Beneath The Ice

Antarctic is known for being earth's largest single mass of ice. It covers almost 14 million sq km and holds around 61 percent of earth’s freshwater. However, wide networks of canyons, waterways, and lakes that have been discovered buried under the ice sheet have captured the interest of people and are now the focus of novel scientific research. Subglacial lakes are large pockets of water that lie beneath a glacier or the ice sheet and are formed due to geothermal heat that is trapped by the insulating effect of the ice. These lakes may have existed since the continent became glaciated. There are around 400 subglacial lakes scattered across the Antarctic continent (Siegert et al., 2016). These subglacial lakes are proving to be attractive models to explore fundamental themes in limnology as well as have direct global implications such as landscape−lake interactions, the viability and adaptation of organisms to environmental extremes and subglacial aquatic environments as a planetary storehouse of ancient microbes and past climate records (Vincent and Laybourn-Parry, 2008)

Exploration of Antarctic subglacial lakes

The freezing of Antarctica began in the middle Eocene ( about 45.5 million years ago) and intensified during the Eocene−Oligocene about 35 million years ago. Since its formation, the ice sheet has withdrawn a little. However, its eastern and western parts have experienced significant fluctuations in ice volume over time.

The idea of subglacial lakes was proposed as early as the 19th century when Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first suggested the existence of freshwater under the Antarctic ice sheets. He theorised that the tremendous pressure exerted by the cumulative mass of thousands of vertical meters of ice could increase the temperature at the lowest portions of the ice sheet to the point where the ice would melt.

この記事は Geography and You の June 1-15, 2019 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

この記事は Geography and You の June 1-15, 2019 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

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