Thursday, June 21, 2001
Mysteries of the lake
By
Bryon Okada
Star-Telegram
Staff Writer
A vast, subglacial lake discovered more than two miles below the South Pole has captured the
imaginations not only of scientists, but also of conspiracy theorists, alien-encounter types and devotees of urban myths.
NASA wants to use Lake Vostok to test equipment for a planned mission to Jupiter. Microbiologists want to study life in extreme climates. Environmentalists want to halt exploration to keep the lake, believed to have the purest water on Earth, free of contaminants. UFO buffs and X-philes, meanwhile, are generating a Bermuda Trianglelike buzz about the lake, and renewed interest in ancient history and the release of the movie Atlantis on Friday are fueling the talk.
Here is an excerpt of a popular posting in several Internet chat rooms: "If the Great Flood was caused by the Earth shifting its axis, as appears to be what actually happened, where what used to be the North Pole ended up near the equator, then Atlantis didn't sink. It simply relocated to the South Pole."
And another: "This is where Godzilla lives."
To put it simply, Lake Vostok is cool.
For those unfamiliar with the story, a lot of hard science has gone into the exploration of Lake Vostok.
The Russians have had a base at the site since the 1950s, but it was not until two decades later that scientists suspected there was something beneath it. Since 1989, scientists and engineers have been drilling the ice sheet above Lake Vostok to study the Earth's past climates. Drilling was abruptly halted
when researchers hit a layer of refrozen ice 120 meters thick.
That led to speculation, later confirmed, that almost 12,000 feet below the base there is a 9,000-square-mile subglacial lake about the size of Lake Ontario. The water is unusually warm, probably a little below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with 67 degrees below zero at the surface.
U.S. scientists studied the refrozen ice and found bacteria, which could suggest that a whole ecosystem different from ours - an alternate ecology - may have existed for thousands, maybe millions, of years.
"That's what we know, and it's not much," said John Priscu, the Montana State University microbial ecology professor who conducted the study.
"We know there's life down there, and it's a bizarre environment under three miles of ice, and it's been there a long time. That's pretty wild."
Priscu is leading another study this summer, so the picture should become clearer in the next year or so.
The unanswered questions - along with the remoteness of Antarctica and the hazy politics of that faraway continent - increase already intense speculation.
Drilling was stopped because of concerns about the potential for environmental contamination. But speculation intensified, particularly via the Internet, that scientists were about to expose the world to a deadly virus for which humans have no antibodies.
When several researchers became sick earlier this year, requiring special airlifts out of Antarctica, the cries of a government cover-up reached a fever pitch.
And some believe that Lake Vostok has provided evidence that Atlantis, perhaps a victim of polar shifting and/or plate tectonics, is under the South Pole.
Check out The Atlantis Blueprint by Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath, a book that proposes that the people of Atlantis had created a thriving maritime society that is the proto-culture of societies today.
The basis of Flem-Ath's research is an ancient map depicting Atlantis that he found in a book while doing research for a screenplay about hibernating aliens.
"The map is a map of Atlantis, but if you take off all the labels, and you compare it to the Earth's surface, it's very similar to Antarctica," he said. "That was the first thing that got me onto it."
Flem-Ath's work has often been used to promote Lake Vostok theories, but his research locates the main city of Atlantis elsewhere.
The buzz about the lake does not surprise Ray Browne, founder of the Popular Culture Association and professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, the country's only department devoted to studying the reality-in-flux of coolness.
"When there's an interest, you've got to feed that," he said. "Someone has rediscovered Atlantis outside the Pillars of Hercules, inside the Mediterranean, in the Caribbean, under the South Pole and everywhere else. ...
"They want to find it, we want to find it, and if we never do, it's still tremendously interesting, because we all have a little archaeologist in us, and we're yearning for the Garden of Eden."
Count Josh Nalbrook of Coppell among the skeptics.
"I think they're milking history for money," he said.
Steve Brewster of Trophy Club, who was shopping recently at Grapevine Mills mall with neighbor Patrick Peeraer, said he had read an article about the theory that Antarctica was Atlantis.
"All this makes you curious. How questions about history come back," Brewster said.
"Plus, if there's really an Atlantis down there, they supposedly have a different energy source that we might be missing," Peeraer said.
"Maybe they know how to reduce gas prices," Brewster said.
And while many scientists are not concerned with pop culture, some, such as Priscu, say the debate - no matter how wild - creates a healthy public interest.
"Children e-mail me, wanting to be scientists," he said. "You say we're looking at bacteria, and you don't get a second look. You bring up little green men on Mars, and people pay attention."
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