Scientists poised to reach buried Antarctic lake

Amidst the slow crawl of life in Antarctica, from the strut of the Emperor Penguin to the waddle of the Weddell Seal out of water, there is a flurry of activity by scientists from Russia's Artic and Antarctic Research Institute, as they attempt to reach an ice-buried lake which sits two miles beneath the surface.
But of the millions of lakes on Earth, what makes this one dubbed Lake Vostok so special? According to calculations by researchers, the lake may be up to 14 million years old with its waters reaching an age of one million years. Furthermore, underneath the frigid Antarctic atmosphere, Vostok has been sealed off from sunlight for over 1,000 years. Thus, the potential for unique life forms adapted to not only cold environments but also lightless ones is enough to make any biologist salivate.
Work on Lake Vostok officially began in 1999; however, the story goes back as far as the early 1970's. At that time, Russia began drilling into the Antarctic ice searching for air bubbles caught in the ice, giving atmospheric freeze frames at different times of the planet's history.
But when the team found evidence of a lake present beneath all that ice, and satellite detection confirmed their findings, researchers knew it was big. Vostok stretches up to 155 miles long and 50 miles wide in some spots and as deep as 1,600 feet. Of the 400-something below-ice lakes discovered on Antarctica, Lake Vostok is by far the largest.
Teams from the United States and United Kingdom are now also working to reach the lake. Because the Russian drilling project was not originally designed for sampling water beneath the ice, the latest reports from the site say their work is progressing at only 5.7 feet per day.
However, both the U.S. and U.K. have begun moving state-of-the-art drilling equipment to Antarctica and plan on drilling as soon as 2013. When the two teams do start working, they will be able to reach the ice in a matter of days with their hot-water drills and bring up water samples within 24 hours.
One concern is that as temperatures drop lower and lower, aircraft will no longer be able to operate in the frigid environment. As a result, if researchers cannot withdraw samples soon, they will have to stop work for two whole years until the next time summer reaches the South Pole. And while the thought of workers stranded in the frozen tundra may remind some people of movies such as Shackleton in 2002 or The Thing in 1982 and 2011, the team has remained in close contact with headquarters in St. Petersburg and has given assurances that they are safe and sound.
While the work has been long and difficult, the possibilities that lie under all that ice makes the effort worthwhile for scientists such as John Priscu, a microbiologist from the University of Montana. Priscu has been keeping in close contact with the Russian team, and, regardless of who gets the first sample, whether it be the Russians, the Brits or the Americans, he knows that what researchers find may blow the minds of scientists across the globe.