Lake Vostok in Antarctica: hotline to one of the world's coldest places

• Report rights infringement
• published: 11 Feb 2014
• views: 11781

Lake Vostok has been hidden underneath four kilometres of ice for tens of millions of years. Scientists want to reach it in order to find out more about the climate of the past - and the future. In 2012, after decades of trying, a Russian team drilled through to Lake Vostok. Vostok is widely regarded as one of the most exciting scientific projects in the world today and the breakthrough was met with great excitement. Right now, the short summer in Antarctica has come to an end, and Russian scientists have just flown out of the Vostok station before the weather makes them prisoners there. Just before he left, glaciologist Dr Vladimir Lipenkov granted Alice Lagnado, of the Voice of Russia radio station in London, a rare opportunity for an interview over the station's satellite phone. Also in this feature, Alice talked to Professor Martin Siegert about the British attempts to drill through to Lake Ellsworth what's happened so far, and exciting plans for the future. You can read more about the British project at http://www.ellsworth.org.uk/ For the full text of the interviews, please visit http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/news/2014_02_04/Antarctica-We-speak-to-scientists-scrambling-to-finish-work-before-winter-0675/ With thanks to Dr Vladimir Lipenkov and Dr Alexey Ekaykin of the Russian Antarctic Expedition/AARI, and also to the British Antarctic Survey, for the photographs. Thank you also to Enryoki, a Russian musician living in St Petersburg, for one of the musical excerpts https://soundcloud.com/enryoki