The Antarctic Sun: News about Antarctica - Current Science Headlines

Science—Earth

The first view of the bottom of subglacial Lake Whillans. Soft lake sediments crumble as the WISSARD underwater camera touches the bottom.

Life Under the Ice

It's life. But is it life as we know it? That question will be answered in the months ahead, but it appears that the first evidence that something lives in a lake covered by nearly a kilometer of ice in West Antarctica emerged at the end of January.

Read the Story

Water World
In the end, it took a little bit of magic and quite a lot of effort, but U.S. scientists announced this week that they successfully reached a lake buried nearly a kilometer below the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. a custom-made, high-powered hotwater drill reached subglacial Lake Whillans on Jan 28.

Poised for the Plunge
The final push by a team of U.S. scientists to explore a lake nearly a kilometer below the ice sheet is about to begin. Their destination: subglacial Lake Whillans, a liquid body of water trapped under about 800 meters of ice. Their mission: To make some of the first explorations of a subglacial ecosystem.

Magical Realism
The biggest research program of the post-International Polar Year (IPY) era for the U.S. Antarctic Program, WISSARD brings together more than a dozen principal investigators to delve into a subglacial lake buried nearly a kilometer below the ice sheet.

Clean Conduct
There are few places in Antarctica that have been studied as long as Mount Erebus, with continuous research atop of the active volcano stretching across four decades. But one of its most mysterious phenomena is only recently drawing attention by scientists.

Life Under the Ice

Previous Stories