New life discovered under kilometers of ice in Antarctica

The dark waters of a deep lake under the West Antarctic ice sheet have been found to be teeming with bacteria.

This discovery has great significance for the search for life on other planets, especially on Mars, where there are signs of a buried salty lake.

Description of the drilling site in Antarctica.

Expedition leader John Priscu, an ecology professor at the University of Montana, said initial studies of water samples taken from the bottom of the lake contained about 10,000 bacterial cells per milliliter.

Priscu says the high levels of microbial life in the dark, ultra-deep lake are signs that it could support higher forms of life, such as microscopic animals.

"We saw a lot of bacteria and there was enough organic matter. So we would really have hope for higher organisms, like animals as well," said one researcher.

The richness of bacterial life in Lake Mercer – a newly drilled glacial lake – complements the discovery of high levels of bacterial life in the nearby Lake Whillans subregion in Antarctica.

Mercer Lake is estimated to cover 139 square kilometers under the ice. To access this bacteria-filled environment, the expedition team used a drill and hot water to drill a hole from their camp on the frozen surface into the buried lake during their time on the ice since mid-December last year.

Currently, scientists are still continuing to conduct research.

The hole drilled in the ice was kept for about 10 days and scientific sampling missions were stopped twice while it was expanded with hot water.

The team also lowered a specialized underwater vehicle (ROV) into the dark waters of the buried lake and several cameras, which they used to take photos and video of the lake floor.

Priscu hopes that laboratory studies of sediment cores, in particular, will help scientists learn more about the behavior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet over the past tens of thousands of years and the unique ecosystem of liquid water trapped beneath the thick ice.