Lake Vostok hasn’t felt wind in over 20 million years. For the last 20 of those years, a Russian team of scientists and engineers have been drilling through the 2.2 miles of hardened Antarctic ice in conditions so harsh that machines frequently stop working and air traffic is halted. Measuring by volume alone, Vostok is the third largest lake in the world. It’s comparable to the conditions of lakes on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Which is exactly why scientists were so excited to discover it in the ’90s, along with the other lakes making up the nebulous clump of subterranean waterways below Antarctica. You know the story: the Russians are doing something quickly that we’re taking our time with; we’re concerned that they’re doing it all sloppy and dangerously, potentially damaging the environment (because we’re huge hypocrites), but mostly we’re afraid that they’re going to get to some strange esoteric/atavistic knowledge before we do, etc.
I have a few initial, and sort of simultaneous, responses. There’s a part of me that can only see this metaphorically. (Maybe we’ll call this the “obvious” response. Maybe it’s the most accurate? Maybe it’s the most romantic.) I want to write a novel about a multi-national scientific team that completely falls apart during an expedition to dig up an ancient, ice-encased lake. Like an inverse Tower of Babel writ small.
Another part of me is bored by it. The detached, cynically safe part of me; hiding behind a cudgel of meaningless tweets that I only actually pretend to think are meaningless, but secretly adore — this part of me just wants to make up jokes. I guess the real reason I love shit like finding ancient underground 20-million-year-old lakes is that it’s something actually happening that takes me out of the atomized world of my wireless connection and makes me think about something that isn’t commentary on commentary. We’re inundated with jokes and pics and memes, but there are still people exploring. Like, actually exploring — not just trying to ride a trend before anyone else. So it’s a real story, with real things and real people. It’s the same reason I like Bill Vollmann, and the same reason that some people think he’s a joke: exuberance unfettered by irony.
Knowing how cheesy it sounds: go find your own ancient underground lake IRL.
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