Where is vostok antarctica located

Lake Vostok, Antarctica's biggest and deepest subsurface lake, might contain thousands of different kinds of tiny organisms — and perhaps bigger fish as well, researchers report.

The lake, buried under more than 2 miles 3. It's thought to have been cut off from the outside world for as long as 15 million years. But the latest results, reported in the open-access journal PLOS ONE , suggest that the lake isn't as sterile or otherworldly as some scientists might have thought.

More than 3, different DNA sequences were identified in samples extracted from layers of ice that have built up just above the surface of the lake.

About 95 percent of them were associated with types of bacteria, 5 percent of them had the hallmarks of more complex organisms known as eukaryotes, and two of the sequences were linked to a distinct class of one-celled organisms called archaea. The sequences included close matches for various types of fungi as well as arthropods, springtails, water fleas and a mollusk. What's more, some of the bacteria from the sample are typically found in fish guts — suggesting that the fish they came from may be swimming around in the lake.

Lake Vostok, which is miles 1, kilometers from the South Pole, is thought to have been open to the air and surrounded by a forested ecosystem during the warmer climate that existed more than 35 million years ago. They say life forms could have been transported into the lake from the atmosphere until it was sealed up by ice, sometime around 15 million years ago. Today, the buried lake measures miles kilometers in length and 30 miles 50 kilometers in width. However, the main indicator of catabatic winds is absent in these winds, and namely, the maximum of daily speed variations is observed in the daytime, rather than at night like in real catabatic winds.

Such daily wind speed variations are observed at the station in all months except for April, June and September. This is of the presence of a strong surface High in Central Antarctica in whose system the gradient winds are developed due to the anticyclonic pressure field.

In spite of being significantly remote about km from the shores of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and a large elevation of the station above the ocean level, this area as mentioned above, is subjected to the influence of coastal cyclonic activity. The cyclones penetrating the continent both from the Indian Ocean coast and the Ross Sea, reach the station.

The cyclones coming occasionally from the Indian Ocean also bring cyclonic weather to the station area but with easterly winds. The existing sink in the station area is screened by a coincidence with the gradient wind and a superposition in some cases of cyclonic winds. These effects are so strong that they distort the daily speed variations typical of the catabatic winds. However, the catabatic wind preserves all its other indications at the Vostok station.

In summer, the frequency of occurrence of cyclonic winds similar to the other Antarctic stations increases and that of catabatic winds decreases while in winter it is vice versa. Due to a high station elevation above sea level, the atmospheric pressure here is very low comprising It varies little in individual years. The annual variations like in other mountain countries have one maximum in summer January and one minimum in late winter September.

The variability of mean monthly pressure values has annual variations with the winter maximum and summer minimum. The largest deviations are typical of the entire cold period autumn-winter with dominating anticyclonic weather conditions. However, the largest frequency of occurrence of cyclonic activity is also observed at this time governing thus the significant amplitudes of atmospheric pressure reaching 20 mb.

Due to extremely low air temperatures, the clouds present ice clouds in the station area and only in some cases, clouds comprised of supercooled water droplets can occur. Lower level clouds stratocumulus occur very seldom above the high mountainous Antarctic plateau where the station is located.

Their frequency of occurrence comprises only 1. Stratus clouds that have the largest frequency of occurrence in summer and in the intermediate seasons 1.

At these clouds in summer, the atmospheric pressure Middle clouds are recorded more often, their frequency of occurrence comprising 8. The prevailing cloud family in the station area is high-level clouds, whose frequency of occurrence for a year comprises The frequency of occurrence of clear weather comprising The largest frequency of occurrence of clear weather throughout the year is in winter In winter at clear sky, the weather is characterized by high wind speed 5.

In summer, there is a low wind speed 4. The undulated cloud forms Ci, Cc, Ac, Sc have the largest frequency of occurrence in summer when the air above the Antarctic Plateau warms noticeably. The least frequency of occurrence of cirrus and cirrocumulus clouds is recorded in winter while that of high cumulus and stratocumulus in spring. The frequency of occurrence of stratiform clouds Cs, AS is characterized by inverse annual variations.

Whereas for high stratiform clouds such annual variations are pronounced, the frequency of occurrence of Cirrostratus has two phases during the year: maximum in winter and spring At stratiform clouds, the atmospheric pressure is lower The temperature is slightly less The absolute humidity comprises 0. Large values of total cloudiness and wind speed at stratiform clouds confirm that this form belongs to the frontal system clouds. They result from interaction between the cooled surface of Antarctic Plateau and a relatively warm air flowing onto it.

Their prevailing frequency in winter points to dominance of meridional intrusions of comparatively warm air masses in winter from the ocean to the continent. The mean annual sum of precipitation from the atmosphere is The sum of precipitation falling out from the atmosphere is non-uniform throughout the year comprising on average 4.

On average for a year, there are 26 days with snow, days with the atmospheric fallout of ice needles and days with deposition of hoarfrost.

The meteorological conditions under which it snows differ sharply from the weather accompanying the fallout of ice needles and deposition of hoarfrost. At snowfalls, the air temperature and humidity are much higher with total cloudiness twice as large than at the other kinds of precipitation during all seasons of the year.

The weather at the fallout of ice needles is almost similar to hoarfrost deposition conditions, the only difference being a slightly greater frequency of clear weather and middle clouds along with lower clouds in winter and spring and greater air humidity and wind speed.

Similar weather conditions at these types of precipitation are understandable as the fallout of ice needles and deposition of hoarfrost occur very often simultaneously. The occurrence of ice needles is determined by sea air flowing to the inner regions of the cold mainland at the elevations of about m above the ice sheet surface and its sinking due to downward flows. The atmospheric transparency in the inland region of Antarctica is very large. Practically except for water vapor and ice crystals, the air is not polluted with anything.

But humidity here is less than anywhere else since precipitation is insignificant and snowstorms are rather rare. Therefore, the meteorological visibility in the station area is quite high. The largest frequency of occurrence of good visibility of more than 10 km is observed in summer while that of poor visibility of up to 1 km is the largest vice versa in winter and minimum in summer. Snowstorms in the station area are seldom due to weak winds. The frequency of occurrence of snowstorms changes depending on the snow surface state by seasons of the year.

In spring and in summer, when the snow surface is covered with the radiation crust, the frequency of occurrence of snowstorms is minimum. The largest frequency of occurrence of snowstorms is recorded in winter when surface snow is not consolidated. There are days with drifting snow on average over a year. The long, narrow lake may lie in a rift valley, similar to Lake Baikal in Russia. Geothermal heat from the Earth keeps the temperature of the lake water hovering around 27 degrees Fahrenheit minus 3 degrees Celsius , scientists believe.

The weighty pressure of the overlying ice keeps the lake liquid despite its below-freezing temperature. In the s, Christner was part of an international team that discovered microbes in frozen lake water collected above Lake Vostok's liquid surface, called accretion ice. The top half-inch 1 centimeter of the lake surface freezes onto the flowing ice sheet above the lake, scientists think. Analysis of the life forms suggests Lake Vostok may harbor a unique ecosystem based on chemicals in rocks instead of sunlight, living in isolation for hundreds of thousands of years.

More recent studies of genetic material in Vostok's accretion ice revealed snippets of DNA from a wide variety of organisms related to single-celled creatures found in lakes, oceans and streams. These "extremophiles" could mimic life on other moons and planets, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The researchers took samples from two areas of the lake: the southern main basin and near an embayment on the southwestern end of the lake. By sequencing the DNA and RNA taken from samples of accretion ice frozen lake water attached to the bottom of the overriding glacier , the team discovered far more complexity than anyone thought, said Rogers, according to a press release.