Talk:Lake Vostok

Area conversion

In the fact box on the right, the conversion of square kilometers to square miles is wrong - the figure in the text is right. I don't know how to correct this, but someone should - it is not 9,750 sq. mi. but 6,060 sq. mi.Wlegro (talk) 16:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

"Research" vs. "Controversy"

Has the Controversy described in that section been resolved by the approved solution described in the Research section? 165.170.128.65 (talk) 18:20, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks like it is an ongoing issue. Even with international agreements in place, respecting them is another issue. I think that once the Russians reach the water below, there will be a lot more noise and political posturing.BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Article Tense

Three of the last five paragraphs of the article need to be updated for sentence tense as they appear to have been written in the present tense circa 2010/2011. Some of the information has now been overcome by events (i.e., the lake has been reached). I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to make these changes. Don'tKnowItAtAll (talk) 12:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Russian News Agency Story about Nazi base

Does anyone think that the Russian News Agency story about a Nazi base supposedly being located near Lake Vostok should be part of the article. Here is a link from Washington Post website about this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/lake-vostok-was-once-a-german-nazi-base-russian-news-agency-says/2012/02/07/gIQAKo9RwQ_blog.html. This news broke the same day the they reached the surface of the lake. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, verifiability to a reliable source is there. Check. It's quite interesting, but I wouldn't give it more than a sentence of weight since it seems very peripheral to Lake Vostok. --Ds13 (talk) 07:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Really should be added to Antarctica#History or History of Antarctica as no evidence at hand of precise locations explored to indicate a connection with Lake Vostok. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 08:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason to add anything. The reliable source clearly indicates that it is a rumor and hence not reliable information in and of itself.--Nowa (talk) 16:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Just how was Nazi Germany supposed to have established a base there? Germany had its resources dedicated elsewhere 1933-45, as we all unfortunately know. This is just some silly rumor. HammerFilmFan (talk) 17:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

For a formal peer-reviewed evaluation of various stories about secret Nazi bases, go see:

Summerhayes, C., and P. Beeching, 2007, Hitler's Antarctic base: the myth and the reality. Polar Record. vol. 43 no. 1, pp.1–21. Paul H. (talk) 19:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it is irrelevant to Lake Vostok and totally peripherial to the article, except that it is the Russians who have been drilling all these years and it was their news agency that ran the story. I though it might be noteable, mostly becuse of the peculiar action of the RNA. That being said, I am inclined not to include it, but would not object if someone else added it.Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 20:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

420,000 years or 15 million years??

This section states:

"Ice samples from cores drilled close to the top of the lake have been assessed to be as old as 420,000 years, suggesting that the lake was sealed under the ice cap 15 million years ago."

If the ice closest to the lake is 420,000 years old, wouldn't that suggest that the lake had been sealed under the ice *420,000* years ago? How does 420 /thousand/ year old ice "suggest" a time-span of 15 /million/ years?

Refer to reference number 23 (Bell). The water in the lake is thought to be replenished by melting of ice under high pressure, and existing water refreezes and is carried away by the flow of the ice sheet. So none of the water is thought to be 15 million year old even though the lake is this age. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 05:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

How do they date the ice?--Nowa (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

See Ice_core#Dating_cores, various methods, mostly radioisotope dating of oxygen and hydrogen in trapped air spaces in ice this old. More ice core data available here. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 21:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

You linked to the right section, but most of what you said after that was non-sense. Firstly, the study of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in ice cores focus on stable isotope concentrations (nothing radioactive at all) of the ice in the core (not the trapped air), and such studies are done primarily to infer paleoclimate. The stable isotopes can be used to establish correlations to other cores, but don't provide an age unless the reference you are correlating to is already dated by other means. Secondly, the most significant technique for direct dating cores is layer counting (using a variety of visual, electrical, and chemical properties that vary seasonally). When layers are too thin to count reliably, most dating is done by detecting volcanic layers of known age / composition that can be used as tie points. Layer counting, volcanic tie points, and observations of climate shifts, help to constrain models of ice flow dynamics and evolution that can fill in the intermediate spaces between times with dated horizons. Dragons flight (talk) 10:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks--Nowa (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

So, the actual point is that the oldest reliably dateable ice around the lake is ~420 kyr. But the ice around there flows (slowly). Even EPICA, which was at a dome, only got back to ~800 kyr. The age of the ice above the lake says nothing about the date of sealing of the lake. The 15 million years comes from the date of formation of the ice sheet William M. Connolley (talk) 11:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Contentious, unsupported addition.

The following sentence has been added to the end of the lede.

"It would appear that they have given very little thought to the possibility that our modern immune systems will be totally unable to deal with these ancient microbes (since the immune system has been evolving away from defending against such ancestral organisms to keep up with the advantages acquired by the pathogens themselves over time) and they may prove highly infectious to modern humans and result in a major extinction event or pandemic."

Two references are given: neither appear to contain anything to support the contention of this text, which seems to me to include unsupported and implausible speculation. Could someone with more knowledge of the relevant subjects please look into this and amend (or not) as appropriate? I myself am not comfortable with using the reversion process. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.165 (talk) 00:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

To clarify, no references were given for the addition. This would be Original research and does not belong in the article. The life down there would not be adapted for surface conditions. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 01:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

In fact there were two references, which have now been removed along with the offending text (for which thanks). One ref was to an article on the rt.com website, the other to one (with little text but a couple of hundred comments) on dailymail.co.uk (which I would not any case regard as a reliable source for any science news); neither had any text supporting the material now removed. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.161 (talk) 00:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)