Dry Valley Lakes

Roughly 3700 meters (~2.3 miles) below the glaciers of Antarctica are massive lakes of water kept liquid by the heat of the earth's core. These lakes were covered by glaciers over 1 million years ago, and remain untouched to this day.

Scientists have taken core samples of the ice above the lakes and have uncovered psychrophilic (cold-loving) microbes as far as 3500 meters below the surface. What will scientist find once they reach the water?

The hypothesis is that scientist will find psychrophilic microbes living in the water that have been isolated from the rest of the world since being covered by the glaciers. If the hypothesis is correct, scientist will be able to observe a population of microbes that have evolved independently of all other microorganisms.

The results of this research could give scientists valuable insight into evolution, as well as allow them to speculate on what may lie beneath the massive chunks of ice coating Jupiter's moon Europa.

For more information on these areas of research, please visit the sites listed in "think links".