An ambitious plan to explore a vast lake trapped beneath the Antarctic ice is a step closer to becoming reality.
An advance party has braved freezing temperatures to set up vital equipment and supplies at Lake Ellsworth.
The project by UK engineers to drill through the two-mile-thick ice-sheet is scheduled for the end of the year.
The aims are to search for signs of life in the waters and to extract sediments from the lake floor to better understand the past climate.
It is is one of the most challenging British scientific projects for years.
The task is so complex that preparations have had to be spread over two Antarctic summer seasons.
In the first phase a "tractor train" has just hauled nearly 70 tonnes of equipment from an ice runway at Union Glacier through the Ellsworth mountains to the lake site.
1. A hot water drill will melt through the frozen ice sheet, which is up to 3km (2 miles) thick. After drilling, they will have an estimated 24 hours to collect samples before the borehole re-freezes
2. A probe will be lowered through the borehole to capture water samples
3. A specialised corer will then recover sediment from the floor of the lake through the same borehole
Watch the team's animated explation of the planned drill.
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