Posts Tagged antarctica

In Antarctica: Lake Vostok, the Ancient Lake.

Posted by mistergroonk in Science, World on February 1, 2011

Lake Vostok is located in Antarctica under four km of ice. It is one of the largest sub glacial lakes and is approximately 250 km long and 50 km wide, with depths around 510m. Lake Vostok has been covered by the vast Antarctic ice sheet for up to 20 million 20 million years. After 30 years of drilling through the ice, the scientists announced that they are 100 meters away from the lake surface

via geology rocks

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Antarctica’s Taylor Glacier Blood Falls, Microbial Life in an Impossible Place

Posted by mistergroonk in Just Freaking Neat, Science on March 26, 2010

Roughly two thousand years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a world with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of “primordial ooze.” The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.

Yet another example of how life on earth can exist in near impossible conditions.

(via @slantsmcgee)

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Tuesday Tease: WHITEOUT …uh …erm …Well it has Kate Beckinsale

Posted by mistergroonk in Comics, Movies, Trailers on September 8, 2009

We can’t say the WHITEOUT trailer gave rise to a mad need to see the movie. Kate Beckinsale as the lead stirred some interest(yeah, that’s what we’re calling it) but not $10 worth of interest. Learning that it is based off the Oni Press limited series of the same name and created by writer Greg Rucka and artist Steve Lieber did raise an eyebrow. So we acquired the series and set out to have it finished by the movie’s air date. The series remains unread.

The film we had in Groonkly cross-hairs was 9. A movie based off the short film first covered here back in February 2009 (watch the short film here:ANIMATED WIN: 9).

But we can’t(see: won’t) see 9 on opening day of 9-9-09, because our married friends decided 9-14-09 should be “guys night out” wherein DISTRICT 9 or 9 would be on the menu. Seeing a film twice in this economy is risky on our bank account. Thus Beskinsale wins this week’s Tease.

Our life is sorted in a boring geek kind of way.

UPDATE: The @ruckawriter himself shares a WHITEOUT movie review of interest. Those of you interested in the book can read the first issue for free on Lieber’s site.

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R U Ready for the Real Ice Quake?

Posted by mistergroonk in Science, World on June 20, 2008

There are massive slow moving “ice quakes” roaming across Antarctica. The quakes are shaking the “Whillans Ice Stream, a glacier 100 kilometers across and 1 kilometer thick, which flows from the ice sheet’s interior.”

“The reason that it doesn’t rattle the whole continent is that it’s a very slow event,” says Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University in State College, who made the discovery along with Douglas Wiens, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Normal earthquakes release their energy over a few seconds, but the Whillans’s shaking unfolds over 20 minutes.

Wiens first noticed the ice quakes 3 years ago as he analyzed data from 43 seismic sensors across Antarctica. Hoping for faint signals that would help him pinpoint previously unknown faults, he was instead greeted by booming vibrations from the same spot in West Antarctica.

(via scienceNOW)

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