Auckland, Aug 21: A scientist has warned that taking a sip of the world’s purest water, now locked deep under ice in Antarctica, might erupt in a soda can-type explosion on a massive scale. Lake Vostok in Antarctica has spent 15 million years under four kilometres of ice, its waters sealed off from air and light for all that time under the tremendous pressure of the continental ice sheet.


Russian scientists plan to cut through the ice until they come close to the surface of the lake. US scientists are also interested in drilling through to the lake to see if any life forms can exist there.


But these projects may be set back by an article in the latest issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

In the article, Chris McKay at the NASA-Ames Research Center in California - which works through the US National Science Foundation in Christchurch, New Zealand and McMurdo, Antarctica -warns that whoever drills into Vostok will have to be very careful.


He says the high gas concentrations believed to be present in Vostok “may result in a vigorous gas-driven flow if lake water is brought to the surface. Bureau Report