Mondo Knows Facts

Lake Vostok is a massive freshwater lake buried beneath Antarctic ice

Hidden four kilometres under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, Lake Vostok has been sealed for millions of years.

Lake Vostok is the largest of over 400 known subglacial lakes in Antarctica, spanning 250 kilometres in length. Geothermal heat from Earth's interior keeps the lake water liquid beneath the freezing ice sheet pressure. Scientists study its isolated environment as an analogue for conditions on icy moons like Europa.

FMIB 39495 Iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean
George Frederick Wright ยท Public domain ยท source

Where this comes from

National Geographic

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

More facts like this

Tags: lake vostok, antarctica, subglacial, lakes

Lake Vostok is a massive freshwater lake buried beneath Antarctic ice: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Hidden four kilometres under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, Lake Vostok has been sealed for millions of years. The figure is taken from National Geographic, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a world geography fact?
Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.