Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS FEATURE

The hunt for life below Antarctic ice

In the next few weeks, researchers in Antarctica will drill through 1,100 metres of ice into a lake that has remained sealed for millennia. Here’s what they hope to find.
  1. Douglas Fox

    1. Douglas Fox is a journalist in northern California.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Near the Whillans drill site toward the Trans Antarctic mountains along the edge of the ice shelf

A perpetually dark landscape of lakes and rivers exists underneath Antarctica’s thick glacial blanket. Credit: J. T. Thomas

At a remote camp just 600 kilometres from the South Pole, the race is on to melt 28,000 kilograms of snow. Within the next two weeks, a team of technicians will use that hot water to melt a hole through 1,100 metres of ice, straight down to the bottom of the Antarctic ice sheet. Their quarry is a hidden lake that has been cut off from the rest of the world for thousands of years. The life they expect to find there inhabits one of the most isolated ecosystems on Earth.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 564, 180-182 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07669-3

References

  1. Fricker, H. A., Scambos, T., Bindschadler, R. & Padman, L. Science 315, 1544–1548 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Christner, B. C. et al. Nature 512, 310–313 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Michaud, A. B. et al. Nature Geosci. 10, 582–586 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Achberger, A. M. et al. Front. Microbiol. 7, 1457 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Kingslake, J. et al. Nature 558, 430–434 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links