Comments on: Fossil water

By: RobVG

RobVG — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:18:27 +0000

What about insulation?

Air temperatures at Volstok reach 88° F but the layer where water meets ice is at 32° F. Could the ice above the lake insulate it, limiting the depth of the ice below the “waterline”.

By: podrock

podrock — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 04:29:38 +0000

“Pressure solution”

Ice this thick weighs enough to depress the continental crust below it. However the interface between bedrock and glacier is not planer but very irregular. High pressure points are created in prexisting, structurally controlled, bedrock depressions. These pressure points are great enough to melt the ice to water.

In turn, the water lifts the ice hydrostatically, vastly reducing the friction of the ice-bedrock interface, allowing the ice to move down very gentle slopes.

By: Jeff-Wash

Jeff-Wash — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:38:14 +0000

Well, Antarctica does have an active volcano, so I wouldn’t be surprised
if geothermal heating is involved in ‘warming’ that lake’s waters.

Geothermal heating comes in different forms however; just think of Saturn’s
moon, Enceladus.

That begs the question: If Lake Vostok has life (we’ll find out soon), does Enceladus’ subsurface water reservoir contain life as well?

By: alcaray

alcaray — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:26:10 +0000

Well, there’s always radioactive isotopes.

They are always taken into consideration when judging the solidity of a planet or moon’s core.

Also, it is under a glacier, right? Energy from the motion of the ice must cause some heat. Maybe there’s a special mechanism that’s causing more heat than one would suspect.

Just brainstorming. I don’t give either thought much credence.

-edit- fixed my html. Dang! I can’t seem to post around here without having to fix my errors.

By: ER

ER — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:04:05 +0000

Now that would be scary. A lot of bugs down there generating enough heat over thousands of years to melt hundreds of cubic miles of water. Maybe we shouldn’t be drilling there!

By: RobVG

RobVG — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:35:03 +0000

Exothermic microbial action? n/t

By: VelociraptorBlade

VelociraptorBlade — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:15:55 +0000

Maybe it has something do do with the lake sediment? Just a random guess.

By: ER

ER — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:17:52 +0000

At STP, even the purest water will freeze. However, adding a solute, such as a salt (or a water soluble alcohol) can lower the freezing point. This is why seawater can be colder than 32F, because the salt in solution in it prevents it from freezing at 32. It has to go down to about 28F for the concentration in sea water. It is important to know that there aren’t little tiny salt crytals floating around in a brine. The salt actually ionizes into Na+ and Cl- ions that fly around between the H2O molecules and a few stray H+ and O- ions.

Likewise, steam doesn’t need dust particles to condense around to become a liquid, although a little dust does help provoke condensation somewhat.

By: bowser

bowser — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:14:27 +0000

Another thought. Doesn’t water need impurities to freeze, the way steam needs small dust particles to form drops?

By: bowser

bowser — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:40:46 +0000

The Earth’s core heat comes to the surface in a lot of places – volcanoes, hot springs, geysers. There’s no reason an underground lake couldn’t be within a warm zone.