Antarctica's Lake Enigma certainly lives up to its name. The permanently ice-covered lake, named for the peculiar cone of debris at its center, was until recently thought to be frozen solid. But scientists have discovered a layer of fresh water hidden beneath the ice-covered surface — and it's populated by a diverse cast of microorganisms.
from November 2019 to January 2020, researchers surveyed the lake with ground-penetrating radar and detected at least 40 feet (12 meters) of liquid water under the ice. The researchers then drilled into the ice and sent a camera to explore the lake's depths.
The team first tested the water to determine where it came from. This was important to establish because the area has low precipitation, high winds and intense solar evaporation, so any water in Lake Enigma should have dried up long ago.
Based on the chemical composition of salts in the water, the researchers hypothesized that the lake's water is consistently replenished by the nearby Amorphous Glacier through an unknown underground pathway.
Hidden ecosystem beneath Antarctic ice
The scientists found that, despite being isolated from the atmosphere, the waters of Lake Enigma are home to several kinds of microbial life, which cover the bottom of the lake in blobs known as microbial mats. Many of these organisms are photosynthetic, giving the lake a high concentration of dissolved oxygen.
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may have developed unique metabolic tricks to survive.
"This finding highlights the complexity and diversity of food webs in Antarctic permanently ice-covered lakes, with symbiotic and predatory lifestyles a possibility not previously recognized," the researchers wrote in the study.
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