According to a recently released report, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will have to work within the environmental framework of the international Antarctic Treaty system to evolve a global scientific agreement on minimally disruptive ways to look into one of the “last unexplored places on Earth”- a unique scheme of lakes, and the aquatic systems that may connect them, buried thousands of meters under the Antarctic ice sheet.
The report calls for NSF to work with international scientific organizations and Treaty signatories to develop a management plan for any potential exploration efforts in order to avoid contaminating these lakes and other features which scientists have discovered only recently.
The report stresses that before any efforts are taken to collect samples, much more detailed surveys needs to be taken to catalogue the subglacial aquatic network and allow it to be provided with Treaty protection.
The Department of State coordinates U.S. policy on Antarctica, working closely with NSF that administers and manages the U.S. Antarctic Program. The State Department leads the U.S. delegation to the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM). NSF leads the ACTM’s Committee on Environmental Protection.
NSF had asked for guidance from the Academies on developing a set of environmental and scientific standards to usher a scientifically responsible exploration. The report is the outcome of that request.
A subgroup of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, called the Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments (SALE) group, is scheduled to meet June 6 and 7 in Big Sky, Montana. John Priscu, a researcher at Montana State University, is organizing the meeting. A discussion of the report and its findings will be a part of the agenda.
Ice-penetrating radar and other studies have identified more than 145 subglacial lakes under the ice of the southernmost continent, including one under the South Pole itself. The largest known is Lake Vostok, which has a surface area of roughly 14,000 square kilometers (5,400 square miles), making it roughly the size of Lake Ontario in North America.
Other studies have revealed that shallow, swamp-like features the size of several city blocks and layers of soils and broken rock may exist below the ice, supplying diversity to subglacial aquatic environments. Scientific evidence further shows that these environments include huge watersheds some of which appear to be connected by rivers and streams which flow freely below the ice sheet, some of which are more than two miles thick.
These lakes and their connected systems are among the last unexplored places on Earth.
the report says.
Scientists are interested in these environments all the more because sediments at the bottom of the lakes may have evidence of past climate on the continent over millions of years and possibly even of a time before Antarctica was covered by ice.
The 12-member expert panel that drafted the recommendations also recognized that it will be necessary to sample the waters, most likely by drilling through the ice sheet for obtaining the samples or introducing instruments to fully understand these unique environments.
The report, “Exploration of Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments: Environmental and Scientific Stewardship,” was released in early May by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science.
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