U.S. Drill Reaches Lake Whillans Buried Deep Under Antarctica

On Sunday, U.S. scientists announced that they had successfully drilled into Lake Whillans, a subglacial body of water buried deep under the Antarctic ice sheet. The project, called the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling or WISSARD, began on January 21 and is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs, NBC News reported.

According to the BBC, the scientists reported that sensors on their drill system had recorded a change in pressure, which meant contact with the lake had been made.

Writing on the WISSARD blog, the scientists said, "Sensors on the hot water drill show a water pressure change, indicating that the borehole has connected with the lake. Verification awaits visual images from a down-borehole camera this evening. We are excited about the latest developments at the lake!"

A similar project led by a British team attempting to reach Lake Ellsworth failed in December after they team encountered technical difficulties, the BBC reported. A project led by a Russian team at Lake Vostok has yielded some water samples but no discoveries have been announced.

NBC News reported that the team of scientists will not use the next couple of days to lower equipments down the 2,625-foot-deep hole to obtain water samples for further testing and to carry out measurements.

Frank Rack, a University of Nebraska geologic oceanographer and leader of the WISSARD team, explained the team's use of pressurized hot water to create the hole. According to NBC News, the system uses two 225-kilowatt generators and the power distribution models to create a powerful jet stream of pressurized hot water.

The system, which is considerably cleaner than the kerosene system used by the Russian team, is not without its problems. Rack told NBC News, "My biggest worry is that something might get stuck." Another concern is sample contamination.

Scientists hope to discover more about the water transport and ice dynamics beneath the frozen Antarctic surface as well as what microbes could exist in the lake. Ross Powell, one of WISSARD's principal investigators, told NBC News, "Lake Whillans is just one of a few hundred interconnected lakes and radar observations have revealed that it fills and drains in a five- to 10-year cycle."

"We want to find out what causes these cycles," Powell continued. "And knowing more about ice dynamics is important to better understand the effects global warming might have on the Antarctic continent. Thanks to WISSARD, we will be able for the first time to use real field data as input in our glacialogical models."