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Article: Giant lake hides beneath Antarctica's ice. (Lake Vostek)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- June 29, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Age of Discovery may have ended long ago, but somebody forgot to tell the cadre of researchers studying Antarctica. So little is known about the frozen continent that it appears as a featureless white splotch on most maps. Now, Russian and British glaciologists are filling in the void with the news that Antarctica harbors one of the world's largest and deepest freshwater lakes, concealed under 4 kilometers of ice.
"Lake Vostok is enormous. It's 200 km long and 50 km wide. It's the size of Lake Ontario," says Martin J. Siegert of the University of Wales in Aberystwyth.
The announcement has excited biologists because the lake probably contains ancient forms ...