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Vostok Station & Lake Vostok

78°27′S, 106°50′E — East Antarctic Plateau — Russian research station; subglacial lake beneath ~4 km of ice

What's documented

Vostok Station is a Russian research station on the East Antarctic ice sheet, established in 1957. It sits roughly above the southern end of Lake Vostok — at ~250 km long and ~50 km wide, the largest of Antarctica's known subglacial lakes. The lake has been sealed beneath approximately 4 km of ice for somewhere between 15 and 25 million years, held liquid at minus three degrees Celsius by the pressure of the ice column. Soviet and Russian crews drilled toward the lake in stages between 1989 and 2012, reaching water on 5 February 2012. A magnetic anomaly along the lake's eastern coast, first mapped by a Columbia / Lamont-Doherty group in 2002, has been a subject of ongoing geophysical study.

Public-record imagery

Vostok Station — ice core extraction. The station sits over the largest known subglacial lake.
Vostok Station — ice core extraction. The station sits over the largest known subglacial lake.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · Todd Sowers, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), Columbia University, Palisades, New York for NOAA · 2001
Lake Vostok location map. The lake itself runs 250 × 50 km beneath the station.
Lake Vostok location map. The lake itself runs 250 × 50 km beneath the station.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · NASA/User:Muriel Gottrop/User:Ningyou · Uplo
The Russian drill that reached the lake's surface on 5 February 2012.
The Russian drill that reached the lake's surface on 5 February 2012.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · Nicolle Rager-Fuller / NSF · 2007
Satellite view showing the outline of the subglacial lake.
Satellite view showing the outline of the subglacial lake.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · Goddard Space Flight Center · 2005