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Earth Institute at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
January 21, 2003

Contact:
Mary Tobin
845-365-8607

World's Most Intriguing Lake Formed by Tectonic Activity
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New data shed light on Lake Vostok
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The cavity which became Lake Vostok, a body of water located beneath
more than 4 km of ice in the middle of East Antarctica, was formed by 
tectonic processes in the earth's crust millions of years ago, 
Columbia University's Michael Studinger and colleagues reveal in an 
article published on January 21st in the journal Earth and Planetary 
Science Letters. 

Studinger, a geophysicist at the Earth Institute at Columbia's 
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and colleagues studied Lake Vostok 
and its surroundings, and discovered that the earth's crust changes 
dramatically from one side of the lake to the other, as shown by data 
on gravity, magnetism and topography. The research, funded by the 
National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs, suggests that 
Vostok lies along a faultline, in a cavity formed when two areas of 
crust crumpled together.

An earthquake and aftershock captured by the team's instruments also 
supported the conclusion that the subglacial lake's thermal energy 
comes from tectonic processes. This was the first earthquake ever 
detected in East Antarctica, a region not previously thought to be 
seismically active.

Lake Vostok and the mountains around it are completely invisible from 
the surface of the Antarctic continent. Says Studinger, "It's 
fascinating to stand on a flat, glaring white expanse of ice, and know 
that deep below you, 4 km below, is a fragile world of strange 
beauty." 

The lake is kept liquid because of the enormous pressure of its ice 
cover. About 80 other subglacial lakes have been discovered, but 
Vostok is by far the largest.

The "boundary conditions" of Vostok-including its ice and rock 
structure and the mountains and valleys that influence the flow of ice 
and water-have worked together to support the development of a unique 
ecosystem that "may contain microorganisms with distinct adaptations 
to such an extreme environment," the authors write. These microbes are 
supported by nutrients and small amounts of thermal energy introduced 
through faultlines, while other nutrients come into the lake in 
sediment that is scraped from the surrounding rock by rivers of 
flowing ice (the lake's ice flow was documented in an earlier paper in 
Nature).

Data collection was an exercise in extreme conditions as well. The 
team spent three weeks living in tents in temperatures that never rose 
above -28 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Farenheit). At 11,440 feet 
above sea level, Vostok's air is thin and leaves researchers short of 
breath as they carry out their tasks. Studinger, who stayed on in 
unheated tents with only four colleagues for an additional week of 
data collection, describes long days spent engaged in unglamorous 
activities such as lugging car batteries by snowmobile to instrument 
stations. "You have to like the cold," he says. 

The current paper provides the first comprehensive maps of Lake 
Vostok's ice thickness, geological framework, and the terrain under 
and around the lake as well as an understanding of how these factors 
influence water flow and other pieces of the Vostok ecosystem. In the 
future, the Columbia team hopes to design an observatory that can be 
inserted into the lake so that Vostok can be studied without 
introducing any microorganisms from the outside world.

The Earth Institute at Columbia University mobilizes the sciences and 
public policy in pursuit of a sustainable future. Directed by 
international economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Earth Institute's more 
than 800 scientists are engaged in teaching, research and outreach in 
dozens of countries, working across disciplines to reduce poverty, 
hunger, disease and environmental degradation.  The Lamont-Doherty 
Earth Observatory is the only research center in the world examining 
the planet from its core to its outermost atmosphere, across every 
continent and every ocean. From global climate change to earthquakes, 
volcanoes, shrinking resources, environmental hazards, and beyond, 
LDEO scientists continue to provide the basic knowledge of earth 
systems that must inform the difficult choices necessary for wise 
stewardship of our planet. For more information, visit 
www.earth.columbia.edu.

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