Drilling the Ice from the Past to the Future

On the 5th of February 2012 the hardened hands of drill masters turned a new page of the chronicle of the Antarctic exploration. In the heart of the snow desert at Russian Vostok Station, the head of a boring machine pierced the glacier to touch the water of the huge lake that had been hidden under 4 km of ice for millions of years. A long way led to this event, full of mystery, tragedy, disappointment and luck. An overview of Russian activities with focus on deep ice drilling at Vostok Station and the investigations of the subglacial Lake Vostok will be presented. How the Lake was discovered? Why is it important to explore it? What do we know about the Lake now? What shall we know after penetrating it? These and other questions will be addressed here. In addition, the climatic record over the past 420.000 years, as the main achievement of the Vostok deep ice coring, will be shortly discussed. Finally, the drilling operations that were carried out during the last summer expedition from November 2011 to February 2012 will be shown and some unique materials will be for the first time presented to the public to demonstrate the moment of the penetration to the Lake.