Material World - Subglacial Lakes

Quentin Cooper talks to Martin Seigert from the University of Edinburgh. He is leading a consortium of 15 UK universities who aim to drill through and explore Lake Ellsworth, one of a number of lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet identified by radar surveys in the 1970s. They are joined by Andy Smith from the British Antarctic Survey. Can subglacial lakes, which contain ecosystems isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years, tell us anything about life in extreme conditions on other planets?