Russia says drillers reach long-buried Antarctic lake

Scientists hope samples of Lake Vostok, a body the size of Lake Ontario, will yield signs of previously undiscovered life and new clues about the history of the planet. The lake is believed to have been covered by ice for up to 30 million years.

Russian researchers completed the drilling effort Sunday, reaching the lake at a depth of 3,769 meters (2.3 miles) into the ice, the St. Petersburg-based Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute reported.

When the ice above the lake was breached, lake water was sucked up into the bore and froze, the Russians said. That will allow researchers to take samples back to the surface without contaminating the lake below, they said.

Columbia University geophysicist Robin Bell said the Antarctic ice sheet has covered the lake for an estimated 15 million to 30 million years. The Russians have been trying to reach Lake Vostok for more than a decade, and the institute said Russian Natural Resources and Ecology Minister Yuri Trutnev was on hand for the final steps.

"They consider it the equivalent of getting to the moon," Bell told CNN.

The lake's existence was confirmed in 1996. Earlier drilling by scientists from multiple nations produced ice cores that contain trapped atmospheric gases, which scientists have used to measure changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide over time. Bell said former Vice President Al Gore cited Vostok ice cores in the 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," about the threat of global climate change.

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