It seems an eternity since stories began emerging from East Antarctica that there are not only lakes under its immense icecap, but that Russian researchers are drilling down more than two miles to the biggest one, Lake Vostok, from its research station of the same name. The Soviet Union built Vostok Station, at the so-called Pole of Cold or Pole of Inaccessibility that is farthest from the Southern Ocean and more than 11,000 feet above sea level.  (as opposed to the planet’s spin-axis South Pole) in the Int’l Geophysical Year, 1957. That was before anybody even knew it sat far above a gigantic lake. It is 13,000 feet under the ice. Right, the lake is below sea level. Weird. The ice cap has warped the continent’s rocky craton down that far.

But you want weird, there’s more….

YIKES!!! They did it. Maybe. This post now pivots. News moves fast. The BBC had hardly filed a story - which got me started this morning – on the Russian drive to get to Lake Vostok before anybody else got to a similar if smaller lake  when, as I sat lethargically moseying via Bing and Google etc. they lit up with new sorta news:

• Ria Novosti: Scientists Drill to Sub-Glacial Antarctic Lake: No byline, filed from St. Petersburg, and after a strong if not very informative start asserting without equivocation that an unnamed source says the lake has been reached by the drillers “to reveal the secrets” it has kept for 20 million years, it veers into cloud cuckoo land. It’s quite amazing how it does so with hardly a transition. This story entertains the tale, with a straight face, that shortly after the end of WWII a German submarine somehow or other drove into Lake Vostok and there hid Hitler’s secret files and perhaps even his and Eva Braun’s remains for eventual cloning. Such an enterprising news writing strategy – scientific adventure and crazy talk, all in one package.
• The View (Russia) Russian scientists have drilled a  4-kilometer ice in Antractica ; Cites Ria Novosti as its source for the announcement. But no Hitler or Eva Braun.
• RT (Russ.) ‘Lost World’ reached: 20 million yr old Antarctic lake ‘drilled’ ; Again, Ria Novosti get top billing for breaking the news and remaining its primary source.
• Fox News: Russian scientists reach buried Antarctic Lake Vostok ; Hmm. No byline here, either. And it cites as its primary source, yep, Ria Novosti, which has an account which as we’ve just seen has an apparently loose association with reality.

Hmmm. What the hell is going on? We turn to  another crucible of truth (a place where plain facts, being so dull, get melted down and recast in fabulous fashion and always with superb pictures).

• Daily Mail (UK) Rob Cooper, Thomas Durante: We know where they are! Antarctic explorers says Russian scientists are safe but still ‘working round the clock’ as polar winter looms . Antarctic summer will come to an end within days – team’s last chance to leave the station ; And that hed sampling includes only one of four bullets in the dek. It does seem that a puzzling loss of radio contact from Vostok Station has occurred. This, the Daily Mail’s correspondents assure readers, “has chilling echoes of classic horror film The Thing, where scientists dig up a buried spacecraft in the Antarctic ice, only to unleash an extraterrestrial horror within.” That’s just dumb. Everybody knows that the classic, ie first, version of the movie with James Arness as the giant alien carrot was set in the Arctic. This story on line does, however, display the Mail’s usual, keen sense for illustration.

Just when things are getting fun, time to check with some outlets that still hobble their news writing by resorting to that boring old bromide: When in doubt, check it out. And always be in doubt.

•  CBC Quirks and Quarks – Bob McDonald: Touching the oldest water on Earth ; Filed a few days ago, nothing on actual penetration of the lake, yet.
• Wired (UK) : Russian Drill Penetrates 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake ; This is getting peculiar. This hed is a new topper on a sane account on the Russian drill program with nothing about radio blackouts or other eery events – but it does has a little italic update on top saying Ria Novosti says the drill is now in the lake proper.

I’ll keep my eyes open for responsible and believable reporting on the Vostok drilling program. Is the string’s business end in the lake or not. Was there a radio blackout. How urgent is it that the team pack up and get out before it gets even colder down there. And finally, if the Russians were about to break through, wouldn’t it be nice if they’d flown in a real journalist or two to report from the scene?

*UPDATES:

• Our Amazing Planet/LiveScience – Andrea Mustain: Russian Team Has Reached Buried Antarctic Lake, Reports Say ; A careful job of relaying Ria Novosti’s substance, with all the tabloid nonsense defused – and explicit declaration by outside experts that they’ve heard nothing official from authorities in Russia on the Vostok drilling program’s status. Last week Mustain filed a scene-setter: Russian Scientists Poised to Reach Ice-Buried Antarctic Lake ;

– Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.