The time tunnel that could take us back 100,000 years: Race against time for £7m British project looking for signs of life TWO MILES under the Antarctic ice

Scientists have spent the past fortnight on the Western Antarctic ice sheet trying to drill down to ice-locked Lake Ellsworth



They hope to find life forms which have been shut off from the rest of the Earth for at least 100,000 years

However malfunctioning boilers have now pitted them in a race against time to complete the project before their equipment freezes



A British team toiling beneath Antarctica's midnight sun to drill down to a lake buried beneath two miles of ice have had their attempts frustratingly delayed by malfunctions.

Twelve scientists from the British Antarctic Survey have worked around the clock over the past fortnight to bore 10,000ft down to ice-locked Lake Ellsworth to collect samples of water and sediment.

They hope to find unique microbial life forms there which have been isolated for at least 100,000 years - and probably much longer.

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The team's test drill hole. They now face a race against time to drill 2 miles into the ice to try and reach a frozen lake where they will look for signs of microbial life

The team's 12 scientists have been working around the clock to try and save the mission

The malfunction could mean that the project, which took 16 years to plan, would have to be abandoned

The team had hoped to penetrate the thick ice cap to reach the lake today, but technical difficulties have knocked them off schedule, pitting them in a race against time to complete the mission before their equipment freezes.

The BAS team have been trying to melt their way down to Ellsworth using a 2 mile-long hose tipped with a brass nozzle that sprays sterile water heated to 90C at a pressure of 2,000lbs per square inch.

However, when the scientists fired up their boiler's primary burner for the first time its controller circuit failed.



A secondary burner was fitted and the team worked around the clock to shovel snow to feed the hot-water drill, and in four days they had melted enough to begin drilling the borehole to the cavity.

Aerial view of the site, where the the 12 scientists, from the British Antarctic Survey, are now in a race against time to complete the mission

Drill testing at the base, where staff now face a race against time

The 12 scientists, from the British Antarctic Survey, are now in a race against time to complete the mission before the borehole reseals as they only have enough fuel for one attempt

But then, on Saturday afternoon, this secondary burner failed leaving the BAS team with nothing to do but wait for a replacement part as their bore hole - and equipment - slowly begins to freeze shut.

'We are now committed, having gone past the point of no return,' expedition leader Chris Hill told the Independent. 'If anything stops working now, water could freeze in the pipes and the whole programme could come to a halt.'

Drilling preparations for the team, who admit that they only have one more chance to complete the project

The drill site in situe of the Ellsworth mountains.

The £7million project to drill beneath two miles of Antarctic ice in search of undiscovered life hangs in the balance - after a major equipment failure.

The BAS reports that the replacement components will be with the deep field team in a few days time. They will work with the manufacturers to make sure they install them properly.

But if the replacement parts malfunction malfunction again the team will have no option other than to by pass the circuitry and manually 'drive' the burner - an operation that will require skill and a light touch.

The Lake Ellsworth drill site on the West Antarctic ice sheet: Four British scientists arrived at the site yesterday to finalise preparations for drilling down to a lake locked beneath nearly 10,000ft of ice

For Queen and country: The mission is the most ambitious attempt yet to use hot water drilling to penetrate deep beneath the glaciers which coat our planets southernmost continent

One of more than 400 sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica, Ellsworth is equivalent in size to the UK's Lake Windermere, measuring 7.5 miles long by 1.8 miles wide, and nearly 500ft deep.

Completely cut off from any light from the Sun, any life lurking beneath its waters must endure complete darkness, intense pressure and subzero temperatures.

It is only geothermal heat from the Earth's core and the intense pressure exerted by the weight of the ice above that has kept it liquid.

Should any organisms be found living in its icy depths, they could offer tantalising clues as to how life might look elsewhere in the solar system, such as in the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa.

Expedition leader Chris Hill confirmed they were past the point of no return and feared the water would re-freeze in the pipes and borehole, halting the programme.

A plane unloading fuel at the site

Staff at the site working on the project's test drill holes



HOW THEY PLAN TO DRILL 10,000FT THROUGH ICE TO LAKE ELLSWORTH

Pump a high pressure jet of hot water slowly into the ice to create a borehole that is around 40cm wide



Create a chamber in the ice (the size of a caravan) 300 metres below the surface, fill with hot water, place a water pump inside to balance the pressure and prevent lake water rushing back up the borehole when the lake is penetrated. This should take around two days of constant drilling



Continue to drill the borehole for approximately three days more, going deep through the ice and into the lake



Lower and raise the instruments to retrieve water and sediments samples for analysis in UK laboratories – the team has just 24 hours to complete this stage before the hole re-freezes to an unusable size





The BAS team planned first to bore down to 1,000ft, then stop to create a cavity, then drill a second borehole from the surface down through the this cavity and all the way down to the lake.

The cavity is what controls the pressure of the liquid being drawn from Ellsworth, stopping a geyser of prehistoric water from bursting back up through the borehole and spilling out over the surface of the ice.

Once they reach the waters, they will have just 24 hours to sterilise the entrance to the hole with intense UV light and lower a probe into the lake to collect their samples before the hole refreezes again.

Technology: The BAS team will melt their way into the lake using a 2 mile-long hose tipped with a brass nozzle that sprays sterile water heated to 90C at a pressure of 2,000lbs per square inch

Lake Ellsworth is one of 200 subglacial lakes in the Antarctic: Equivalent in size to the UK's Lake Windermere, it measures 7.5 miles long by 1.8 miles wide, and is nearly 500ft deep