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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

EXCLUSIVE: Tiny animal carcasses found in buried Antarctic lake [nature.com]

Scientists drilling into a buried Antarctic lake 600 kilometres from the South Pole have found surprising signs of ancient life: the carcasses of tiny animals preserved under a kilometre of ice.

The crustaceans and a tardigrade, or 'water bear' — all smaller than poppy seeds — were found in Subglacial Lake Mercer, a body of water that had lain undisturbed [nature.com] for thousands of years. Until now, humans had seen the lake only indirectly, through ice-penetrating radar and other remote-sensing techniques. But that changed on 26 December when researchers funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) succeeded in melting a narrow portal through the ice to the water below.

Discovering the animals there was "fully unexpected", says David Harwood, a micro-palaeontologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who is part of the expedition — known as SALSA (Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access).

[...] The researchers now think that the creatures inhabited ponds and streams in the Transantarctic Mountains, roughly 50 kilometres from Lake Mercer, during brief warm periods in which the glaciers receded — either in the past 10,000 years, or 120,000 years ago. Later, as the climate cooled, ice smothered these oases of animal life. How the crustaceans and tardigrade reached Lake Mercer is still a matter of debate. Answers could come as the SALSA team tries to determine the age of the material using carbon dating and attempts to sequence the creatures' DNA. Piecing together that history could reveal more about when, and how far, Antarctica's glaciers retreated millennia ago.

Also at The Guardian [theguardian.com].

Original Submission