Monday, August 15, 2011

Lake Vostok

Lake Vostok is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. Ice it provides a continuous record of Earth's climate 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for 15 to 25 million years. The lake is named Vostok, 900 tons of Russian corvette Fabian von Bellingshausen Antarctic pioneer.

Average water temperature of -3 ° C and the reason why the lake is still liquid below freezing is the influence of high pressure from the weight of ice on it.
The scientists also discovered that the ice core may be 420,000 years old, which means that the lake is covered for more than 500,000.

Lake Vostok is located beneath Russia's Vostok Station on the bottom surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at 3488 meters (11,444 feet) above sea level. Surface freshwater lake is about 4,000 m (13,100 feet) below the surface ice, which puts it at approximately 500 m (1,600 feet) below sea level. The lake is divided into two basins by a ridge depth. Liquid water through the ridge is about 200 m (700 ft), compared with about 400 m (1,300 ft) deep in the northern basin and 800 m (2,600 feet) deep south.




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