Antarctic lake mission targets life and climate signs

The mission will use hot water to melt its way through ice 3km (2 miles) thick to reach Lake Ellsworth, which has been isolated from the outside world for at least 125,000 years - maybe a million.The team hopes to be the first to sample a sub-glacial Antarctic lake.An engineering team leaves the UK later this week along with 70 tonnes of gear. The project, funded to the tune of £7m by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, aims to obtain samples of the lake water itself and of sediment on the lake floor.

The heavy equipment has to be airlifted in to Antarctica, followed by a long trek over land
"Our project will look for life in Lake Ellsworth, and look for the climate record of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet," said the project's principal investigator Professor Martin Siegert from Edinburgh University. "If we're successful, we'll make profound discoveries on both the limits to life on Earth and the history of West Antarctica," he told BBC News.