Under the kilometre-thick ice sheet of Antarctica’s hidden lakes and rivers. They are caused by the heat and friction of the earth’s crust. Researchers have discovered in a sample of water from the underground lake to Lake Mercer, the Remains of crabs, velvet worms, algae and fungi. the Johanna Kuroczik
Under the eternal ice of Antarctica is a world that is referred to by the trade journal Nature as “the largest unexplored Ecosystem on the planet”. Between earth’s crust and the layer of ice, researchers have discovered in the nineties by Radar lakes and rivers, some of which are cut off since 120 000 years from the outside world. So far, it is on this landscape. Now, it has managed to US researchers, after a day long hot water-holes, to melt a 1000-Meter-deep shaft into the ice and the Lake Mercer in the South of the Antarctic a sample of the water.
It is only the second Time that one of these so-called subglacial lakes have been directly drilled. 2013, gives researchers insight into the Lake Whillans and were surprised by how rich the Ecosystem was. About 4000 microbe species had lived there for over a hundred thousand years without the sun light. In the mud of Lake Mercer, the scientists found that algae now, in addition to silica and microbes also Remains of tiny animals – animal cancer cells and Tardigrada, also called water bears, smaller than a poppy seed. Also traces of plants and fungi you have discovered. This finding was “totally unexpected,” said David Harwood, who was involved in the Expedition.
How the organisms are in the dark and cold waters?
The diatoms are likely to have lived several million years ago in the Region, as the ice was on Lake Mercer a sea. How old are the crabs and velvet worms are closely, hoping to determine the researchers by means of the radiocarbon method. You suspect that these creatures are significantly younger than the algae, and in front of a few thousand to ten thousand years in lakes in the surrounding mountains lived – at least, they resemble animals found there. How exactly do you get from there into Lake Mercer, is still unclear.
Byron Adams is an Ecologist at Brigham Young University in Utah and was the First to investigate the sample in the research station on the Antarctic coast. All the animals in the samples were dead, but he believes: “It is possible that you will find down there, also living organisms.” For this you need more Material. It was a small sample, barely a teaspoon full of sea water.
“the Rock is a heat source”
Would it really be possible that animals in isolation without sunlight in bitter cold lakes under the ice of Antarctica survive? Theoretically, the water of the lake contains enough oxygen and bacteria to feed living beings. The Nature authors believe that it would generally be conceivable that the sea animals from five to ten thousand years ago, as the ice sheet of Antarctica was at times thin, rinsed and then in the icy lakes were included. Chemical analyses clearly show whether the Lake Mercer found the cancer and the water in the sun to have lived light or in eternal darkness miles deep under the ice.
Subglacial lakes such as Lake Mercer are not the result of the crust of the earth is as cold as the overlying ice sheet. Thus, these melts from below. “The Rock is a source of heat,” says Angelika Humbert, Glaciologist at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar – and marine research. In addition, the ice slides to the minimum of the surface of the earth. Due to the friction heat is generated in addition, and so the water collects in Sinks. By the pressure of kilometers thick layer of ice, the melting point of water decreases also. How old are these waters are exactly that, according to Humbert difficult to detect.
