Russian scientists seeking Lake Vostok lost in frozen 'Land of the Lost'? (Attacked by "The Thing?")

FoxNews.Com ^ | February 2, 2012

[PJ-Comix]

A group of Russian scientists plumbing the frozen Antarctic in search of a lake buried in ice for tens of millions of years have failed to respond to increasingly anxious U.S. colleagues -- and as the days creep by, the fate of the team remains unknown.

"No word from the ice for 5 days," Dr. John Priscu professor of Ecology at Montana State University, told FoxNews.com via email.

[PJ-Comix]

My first thought when reading that these scientists went missing was "The Thing." They open up a lake that has been beneath the surface for 20 million years and release a virus that...

Well, you know the rest of the story.

[AlexW]

Yes...It does sound pretty freaky.
Keep us posted, as I have not heard anything about it.

[PJ-Comix]

Last sentence of the article:

"It could be fodder for a great made-for-TV movie," he said.

I think it was already fodder for a made-for-movie movie called "The Thing."

[AlexW]

I did post before noticing the link.
I will have to read it a second time, but my bedtime now.
It all sounds pretty kooky.

[LRS]

Hmm. Let's consider all the possibilities: “The Thing”, secret hidden Nazis, dinosaurs, Alien vs. Predators, a giant walrus, (and others that I just forgot),

or,

bad weather on an unforgiving continent...

[PJ-Comix]

I’m assuming the Russians have more than one way to communicate with the outside world. If so, that makes this especially creepy since it happened just as Lake Vostok was being breached after being buried for 20 million years.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

“They open up a lake that has been beneath the surface for 20 million years and release a virus that...”

Yes that is a big fear among some scientists.

Some are thinking that the Russians are searching for rare earth minerals instead of Lake Vostok.

[mkjessup]

Just wait, they’ll find a latter day Nazi-created clone of Admiral Byrd who will shout “GO BACK!!!!” ;)

[PJ-Comix]

Some are thinking that the Russians are searching for rare earth minerals instead of Lake Vostok.

Unobtainium?

[thackney]

Lake Vostok is one of many subglacial antarctic lakes. It is just the biggest of them.

Their preliminary research results, to be published in the March 21 issue of the scientific journal Nature, reveal that although the lake is ancient, perhaps millions of years old, the waters of Lake Vostok are relatively young. Bell's paper demonstrates that over a period of 13,300 years, all of the water is removed by the overlying ice sheet and replaced from other sources. The Lake water captured by the moving ice sheet is deposited as layers of ice along Lake Vostok’s eastern shoreline. Exploring those ice layers is equivalent to exploring the lake itself.

Through radar soundings over Lake Vostok, Dr. Bell and her team determined that the ice formation in the southern half of Lake Vostok, holds buckling patterns frozen into the ice sheet as it flows over the lake. Following the trends of the buckled ice patterns, scientists were able to construct movement trajectories across the Lake. They then calculated the time it took ice to move from the west side of the Lake to the east–20,000 years over a distance of about 35 miles. By examining the ice flux out of the Lake, the team determined that every 13,300 years the ice sheet removes the equivalent of the entire volume of Lake Vostok.

As the ice sheet removes lake water like a continuous conveyor belt, lake waters must be replenished, either by melting of the ice sheet or by subglacial meltwater.

[PJ-Comix]

This is what they found on the surface of that buried lake:

[Riley]

They’re Norwegians, Mac.

I don’t know what got them, but it’s weird and it’s pissed off.

[PeteB570]

65 tons of kerosene in the drill hole?

That doesn’t sound too earth friendly to me.

[Leroy S. Mort]

...scientists around the globe have been waiting with baited breath to see what the Russian's unearth this weekend.

Take a flamethrower to your copy writer, Fox. It's "bated" and "Russians".

[PJ-Comix]

James Arness was the original Thing in the 1951 “The Thing.” I understand that he used method acting to get into the role.

[Rummyfan]

Whatever they found, I hope they didn't put an electric blanket on it!

[treetopsandroofs]

The Russians did it, so it’s ok.

Communism GOOD.
Communist Space Program GOOD
NASA Muslim Outreach GOOD
Democrat GOOD.

Republican BAD.

It’s all I ever need to know.
Big Media is there for ME.

/s

[driftless2]

Still one of my favorite, cheesy, horror flicks. With some interesting story lines concerning the leftist scientist who would rather the monster killed everyone on earth because human beings are so awful opposite the heroes (Ken Tobey etal) who simply wanted to kill Marshall Dillon er I mean The Thing. As the movie was made in 1951, and the kill-the-darn-thing good guys won out, I wondering if this wasn’t a metaphor for what was going on politics-wise with McCarthy and the communist investigations?

[5by5]

Kerosene...

I liked how they said it: “...a fluid called kerosene...”

I wonder what the reaction would be if they said “a fluid called jet fuel”?

[RetroSexual]

I wouldn't worry about them. They'll get in touch when they run out of beer and pickled eggs.