NeuschwabenlandTimes] Magnetic Vostok Reversals Welcome to the Antarctic! Now Go Away Lake Vostok is located almost in the center of the Antarctic. It is almost as big as Lake Ontario. Mysterious is absolutely the right word to describe this huge body of water. Last summer in the Antarctic SOAR (Support Office for Aero geophysical Research flew 36, 4 hour missions over Lake Vostok. Every second instruments in the Twin Otter airplane measured gravitational attractions, radar readings, and 10 different measures on a magnetometer. They may have found more mysteries than they solved. Probably the biggest mystery is evidence of a huge magnetic anomaly. Encompassing the Southwest corner of the lake, 65 X 46 miles there are indications that the geological structure changes beneath the lake. One quick theory is that this indicates a thinner crust in the surface of the continent. Another mystery is that ice core samples have proved that micro-organisms live 11,886 feet deep under the ice. That is over 2 miles down! If the ice core is drilled another 400 feet or so it will enter an pristine atmosphere sealed off for millions of years. Air samples can tell scientists a lot about our planets past. BTW, back to the ice core. Each year as the snow falls and melts and refreezes it forms a geological diary that scientist decode and read to tell them what was happening in the worlds atmosphere going backward in time at least 400,000 years. Back to Lake Vostok. Beneath the trapped atmosphere lies equally pristine water. Is there life there? If there is it makes one lake up and out to Europa the ice covered moon orbiting Jupiter. Don't bet against life. I think you will lose. Beneath the water is the bed of the lake. How was this huge lake formed? Sediment from the lake bed can provide the answers. And the deepest mystery (pun intended). Just what did cause that HUGE MAGNETIC ANOMALY. Isolated from light and from the surface, Lake Vostok might be inhabited by microbes unlike anything known to science PRESS RELEASE AND EMAILS AFTER NSA STOPPED THE RESEARCH Headquarters, Washington, DC February 21, 2001 Phone: 202-358-1730) Space-Mapping Mission Of Antarctica Aborted - Over-ruled By The NSA Contact: Rosemary Sullivant Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone 818/354-0747 RELEASE: 01-24-01 In a brief announcment today, NASA and the JPL terminated all further study of Lake Vostok in S. Antarctica. In an apparent slip of confidentiality, spokeswoman Debra Shingteller alluded to "National Security Issues" allowing the NSA to assume full control of what had been an International effort to explore a huge, under-ice lake near the Russian Vostok research station. Ms. Shingteller was immediately led away from the podium, and an aid responded to the many further questions with the same answer: "the project has been halted due to environmental issues", and that no further releases were pending. The large crowd of press corp. were left clamoring as the officials left the stage. Ms. Shingteller has not responded to repeated attempts at contact. The above is a report from an official JPL PR representative who attended the announcement. The following is part of a letter written to an editor of Scientific American Magazine (who has requested anonymity). The linked photo at the end was released by NASA in Jan 2001 seemingly by mistake. It is no longer available from the official archive... < HREF="http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/antmag.html"> (See satellite mages of Lake Vostok here -ed) Approximately 300 miles from the South Pole there is a lake, a very large lake. It is Lake Vostok. It is also located over 3/4 mile beneath the Continental Ice Sheet. The best photos of Lake Vostok are from space, where the outline is clearly visible. Current ice-penetrating radar studies indicate that the water is up to 2000 ft deep in places, and has an over-arching dome up to 1/2 mile high. Estimates for filtered light at the lake surface indicate something like "continuous first morning light" during Antarctica's summer months. Thermograph imaging proposes an amazing 50-degree average water temperature with "hot spots" near 65 degrees. This can only be attributed to subsurface geothermal heat sources. At 300 miles long, and 50 miles wide, the encapsulated atmosphere should have the ability to cleanse itself through interaction with the lake, and possibly... plant life. Also proposed as a possible route for atmospheric interaction with the lake's environment are what are being labeled "geothermal boils". These are thousands of bubbles in the ice sheet located in the some 200 sq. miles of "ice dunes" discovered by the late Russian scientist Ivan Toskovoi who was stationed at Vostok research base until his disappearance in March 2000. The surveyed bubbles range from a few to several hundred feet in diameter. Quite possibly just as exciting as all of the data related so far, is the discovery through Magnetic Imaging that there is an extremely powerful source of magnetic energy located at the North end of the lake's shoreline. As of this writing, no one has suggested an explanation for the magnetic "anomaly". As recently as February 2000, at least two international teams were planning separate probes of the lake. Both consisted of fairly similar robotic sensors that would have been lowered through shafts (to be drilled). The team based at Cambridge University, London were sponsored by the UK and US governments, and backed by NASA technology. For reasons not clear, both programs have been shelved indefinitely, with NASA going so far as to deny any involvement, and both governments citing "environmental concerns". An independent source that visited Norway's research base some 150 miles to the East stated that a large amount of new equipment and personnel have been arriving at Russia's Vostok Station over the last six months. This is interesting considering Russia's current financial situation. A final note is a verified dispatch out of Casey Station (AU). The pair of women adventurers who were attempting to ski across the continent last month, and were extracted by plane during the last leg of their trip, did NOT request the intervention. Over the protests of the Australian crew at Casey, the two were airlifted via an extraordinary 48 hour flight by a USN Special Forces team out of American Samoa. According to the dispatch the women were insistent on reporting something unusual they had seen. The latest news reports have the pair resting in "seclusion".