Dr. Scott Rodger has just published his fourth paper on his findings on Lake Vostak in Antarctica which are summarized in the article “In subglacial lake, surprising life goes on”.  Dr. Rodgers has discovered life in Lake Vostak, once thought to be free from any form of life and considered sterile by many scientists. Many even considered Lake Vostak as a possible model for other planets.  Lake Vostak is the fourth deepest lake on earth and is the largest lake in Antarctica which has been covered by a glacier, 2 miles down, for 15 million years.  Wondering if life ceases to exist in complete darkness under such extreme climates for millions of years, Dr. Rodgers and his crew set out to investigate the lake for any signs of life, not knowing what they would find.

Once down in Antarctica, Dr. Rodgers and his crew took several samples from two areas of Lake Vostak, the southern basin and the southwestern embayment which is a bay formed in the coast line of the lake. The ice samples they collected were where the ice meets the lake waters. To sterilize the samples before analyzing the data for any forms of life, the samples were submerged in sodium hypochlorite and then rinsed three times in sterile water. After the outer-coating of ice was removed a sterilized procedure was followed taking the core of the ice block out. The ice core was then melted, filtered and refrozen. Then the data was analyzed and what was discovered came as a shock to many.

Dr. Rodgers and his crew came to find many marine and freshwater organisms in the ice from Lake Vostak. They performed DNA and RNA sequencing on the organisms which aided in determining what the organisms were and if their sequences were closely related to other organisms. After DNA and RNA sequencing, the organisms they discovered were a diverse set of microbes: thousands of bacteria, 2 species of Archaea, and fungi. The organisms appeared to be organisms commonly found in aquatic marine areas and some commonly seen in lakes, though some organisms they discovered remain unknown. They hypothesize that the reason that marine water organisms were found in Lake Vostak is because the lake was once actually connected to the ocean until a glacier separated the lake from the ocean some 35 million years ago, which dropped the lakes sea level 300 feet. Then another severe temperature drop occurred 14 million years ago and solidified the ice coverage and dropped the sea level even further. Fresh water microbes are also found in the lake, as the surrounding glacier will melt into the lake