Unexpected Life Lurking in Subglacial Lakes Isolated Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice
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Unexpected Life Lurking in Subglacial Lakes Isolated Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice:
Lakes underneath the Antarctic ice sheet could be more hospitable than previously thought, allowing them to host more microbial life.
This is the finding of a new study that could help researchers determine the best spots to search for microbes that could be unique to the region, having been isolated and evolving alone for millions of years. The work could even provide insights into similar lakes beneath the surfaces of icy moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, and the southern ice cap on Mars.
Lakes can form beneath the thick ice sheet of Antarctica where the weight of ice causes immense pressure at the base, lowering the melting point of ice. This, coupled with gentle heating from rocks below and the insulation provided by the ice from the cold air above, allows pools of liquid water to accumulate.
[...] Now, in a study published today in Science Advances, researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Lyon and the British Antarctic Survey have shown subglacial lakes may be more hospitable than they first appear.
As they have no access to sunlight, microbes in these environments do not gain energy through photosynthesis, but by processing chemicals. These are concentrated in sediments on the lake beds, where life is thought to be most likely.
Journal Reference:
Louis-Alexandre Couston, Martin Siegert. Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditions in Antarctic subglacial lakes [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc3972)
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