I thought this was kinda cool, first time I heard about it.
A crew has been drilling for 20 years and on the 5th of February they finally got within 300 feet of water. The lake is under 13,000 feet of ice and its been under ice for about 15 million years. Its supposed to be one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.
Leave it to the russians to take 20 years to drill through 2.5 miles of ice, only to potentially surface a prehistoric micro organism that turns our brains to jelly.
:ninja
:rofl
They’re currently using kerosene and anti-freeze to prevent the shaft from freezing. So right now there is 60 tons of that above 300 feet of ice waiting to contaminate a lake that hasn’t seen the light of day in 15 million years.
Russia refuses to listen to anyone.
Some tid bits from the Wiki article.
Ancient microorganisms are expected to be found in the lake’s liquid layer.[8][9]
It was at Vostok Station that the coldest temperature ever observed on Earth, −89 °C (−128 °F), was recorded on 21 July 1983.
Do not want to be the guy taking that data :wow
Hopefully the water is under extreme pressure and blows the Russians to pieces when they finally breach the ice. The pressure alone is probably why it is still water under there.
Or an Arctic Loch Ness Monster is under there. :ohnoes
:rofl at Boxers’ comment.
But seriously…this is all for science? Who gives a crap. What a waste of money. And not to mention what you said about the kerosense, etc. probably contamination the lake.
There’s a few Russians on this site, not the brightest people to say the least. Now we know where they get it from. 
someone better have fucking did their research, I will be PISSED if a apocalyptic micro organism escapes and shits on us all.
PISSED
Come at me, organism.
We do need some population control :ahh
LETS STOP WASTING MONEY.
I guess its no worse than putting shuttles and crap in space as far as wasting shitloads of time, effort and money goes
That’s the spirt jellies, run to the bank with that.
The average water temperature is calculated to be around −3 °C (27 °F); it remains liquid below the normal freezing point because of high pressure from the weight of the ice above it. Geothermal heat from the Earth’s interior may warm the bottom of the lake. The ice sheet itself insulates the lake from cold temperatures on the surface.
Note the bold part. If pressure is the reason this water as not frozen yet, I think those Russians will be in for it once the pressure is relieved once they poke through.
No different that tapping a subterranean oil reserve. They put a control head on the well.
I hope they find something totally epic down there, like straight out of The Thing type shit
All fun and games till you wake a Decepticon.
If they find something living it will be cool since the level of oxygen is considered toxic and there has been no way to replenish energy sources for millions of years. It would make plausible the existence of life on icy planets and moons we previously thought incapable of supporting life. If they don’t find anything then it would be significant as the only large body of water on our planet with no life in it. Either way I think it is cool.
They broke into the water already and as they expected the pressure of the water pushed into the hole and forced much of the antifreeze up with it. As for being a waste of money, I guess some people just find science interesting.
Doesn’t need to have use/breath oxygen for it to be considered “living” Hell there are creatures that live deep in certain caves that consume nitrogen/sulfur dioxide and excrete sulfuric acid. No that’s not a joke. I would assume that they expected the artisian effect when they broke through, and why they were not worried about lake contamination by the kero as the petroleum would just float on the water column anyway and be expelled.
Yeah, I’ve read about and seen a couple documentaries about different extremophiles, amazing what some life is capable of. Apparently though their research has lead them to believe that the lake is saturated with oxygen, containing something like 50x that of a normal lake. Apparently the environment is considered similar to a moon of Jupiter and one of Saturn’s satellites.
