Newcastle University

Today, a British team of scientists and engineers will realise a 16 year ambition to drill down through over three kilometres of Antarctic ice into an ancient buried lake.
The team hopes to find signs of life in the water and clues to the Earth’s past climate in the mud at the lake floor.

Using a high-pressure hot-water drill specially designed for the mission, the 12-man team will begin boring a hole through solid ice into Lake Ellsworth on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet today (Wednesday, 12 December).

It will be a race against time to keep the access borehole open long enough to lower and raise two state-of-the-art instruments that will collect water samples from the lake surface to the lake bed, and a core of mud from the lake floor. The team can only keep the borehole open for 24 hours before it refreezes to an unusable size, ultimately sealing the lake off again.

Newcastle University physical geography lecturer Dr Neil Ross, is part of the project and took part in two expeditions to map the lake. He said: "It is fantastic to hear that the exploration of Subglacial Lake Ellsworth has reached such an important milestone after so many years of detailed preparation, planning and sheer perseverance by so many people"

For further information on the project and this article see the Newcastle University press release

Dr Neil Ross will also be interviewed by BBC Radio Newcastle on the 12th December at 4:20pm