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Mercer Subglacial Lake is a subglacial lake in Antarctica covered by a sheet of ice 1,067 m (3,501 ft) thick; the water below is hydraulically active, with water replacement times on the order of a decade from the Ross Sea. Studies suggest that Mercer Subglacial Lake as well as other subglacial lakes appear to be linked, with drainage events in one reservoir causing filling and follow-on drainage in adjacent lakes.[3]

Mercer Subglacial Lake
PPT-16
Mercer Subglacial Lake Location in West Antarctica
Location	West Antarctica
Coordinates	84.661°S 149.677°W / -84.661; -149.677 [1]
Type	Subglacial lake
Ocean/sea sources	Ross Sea
Max. length	9 km (5.6 mi)
Surface area	160 km2 (62 sq mi)[2]
Average depth	10–15 metres (33–49 ft) [2]
Residence time	~10 years

Exploration

Helen Amanda Fricker from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered Mercer Subglacial Lake in 2007, while using satellite laser altimetry to search for the grounding line of a glacier.[4] The lake is named after Mercer Ice Stream (formerly Ice Stream A), beneath which the lake is located. Mercer Ice Stream is named after the late Ohio State University glaciologist John Mercer. On 28 December 2018, the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) Project,[5] for which she serves on the project's executive committee,[4] announced they had reached Mercer Subglacial Lake after two days of melting their way through 1,067 m (3,501 ft) of ice with a high-pressure hot-water drill.[6] The drill water is run through filters that catch 99.9% of bacteria and particles,[7] followed by UV light exposure and pasteurization.[8] The team obtained water samples for chemical and biological analyses, as well as samples of basal ice, and sediment cores as deep as 1.76 m (5.8 ft).[9]

Preliminary results

The lake water samples contains enough oxygen to support aquatic animals, and bacteria are present with a density of at least 10,000 cells per millilitre. Other ancient organisms retrieved from the sediments include shells of diatoms (a photosynthetic algae) and thread-like plants or fungi. The sediment cores will also be analysed by geobiologists to study how relict organic matter deposited during marine incursions influences contemporary biodiversity and carbon cycling.[4]

See also

• Glacial lake
• Lake Vostok
• Lake Ellsworth
• Lake Hodgson
• Lake Untersee
• List of Antarctic subglacial lakes
• Supraglacial lake
• Underground lake

References

External links

• Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) home page.

На других языках

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- [en] Mercer Lake (Antarctica)

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[it] Lago Mercer

Il lago subglaciale Mercer è un lago che si trova sotto 1067 metri di ghiaccio dell'Antartide, composto da un'acqua idraulicamente attiva, con tempi di sostituzione dell'acqua dell'ordine di un decennio dal Mare di Ross. È identificato ad alto rischio per il collasso del ghiaccio a causa degli effetti del riscaldamento globale[1].

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