And no one understands how any organism, removed from air, sunlight, or any source of life-sustaining energy, could survive in its frigid currents or under such crushing pressure, which is more than 360 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level. Manahan is a biologist who is chairman of the polar research board of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers are trying to figure out how to study the lake without destroying it. Penguins and seals meander about the sea ice. Mirages can be seen on the horizon.
Volcanoes fume under the ice and lake water fizzles with laughing gas.
Although heroic efforts by the U.S. National Science Foundation have minimized the impact of human activities in recent decades, people can hardly help but jeopardize the study areas that bring them to the frigid place. Biologists in Antarctica gingerly step from rock to rock, trying not to trample rare soil colonies of microbes or sparse lichen. Drums of human waste are routinely shipped away thousands of miles to California. No one dares touch the birds or marine mammals because, under the terms of an international treaty, they could be fined or even deported. Still, in order to get to the remote sites, researchers contaminate the purest air on Earth with exhaust fumes from fleets of motorized vehicles and aircraft.