A Mysterious Lifeform Has Emerged From the Bottom of a Lake That Should Be

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Scientists thought that Lake Enigma in Antarctica was frozen from top to bottom. But, in 2019, they discovered that water existed 11 meters below the surface.
After extracting a sample, a research team led by the National Research Council of Italy discovered a collection of various microbiota that’ve likely been separated from the rest of the world for thousands of years.
The scientists theorize that these microbes are the descendants of life that thrived in the lake before its top became permanently frozen.

In Jurassic Park, the Chaostician Ian Malcolm (portrayed by Jeff Goldblum) famously utters the phrase “life finds a way.” While Malcolm’s cryptic warning applies to the fictional dinosaur island Isla Nublar, these words remain sage advice for biologists exploring the real world as well.

Case in point: a new study led by the National Research Council of Italy discovered evidence of life in a perennially frozen lake in the Antarctic. This is particularly perplexing because this lake—appropriately named “Lake Enigma”—was believed to have been frozen from top to bottom. But researchers discovered the presence of Pseudomonadota, Actinobacteriota, Bacteroidota, and extremely simple single-celled creatures in the superphylum Patescibacteria.

Patescibacteria is particularly intriguing, as this organism is wholly absent from lakes studied in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. The results of the study were published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The research team traveled to the lake in the summers of 2019 and 2020, and with the help of ground-penetrating radar, discovered that Lake Enigma—true to its name—contained a secret: liquid water lying 11 meters below the surface. The researchers drilled into the ice, careful to avoid contaminating any water samples during extraction, and analysis subsequently revealed a treasure trove of microbiota.

“Perennially ice-covered freshwater ecosystems are hotspots of biodiversity in Antarctica’s polar deserts, providing a year-round oasis for microbial life,” the authors wrote. “This study describes a unique example of these ecosystems by adding the massive freshwater Lake Enigma, one of the deepest hydrological formations in Victoria Land.”

The researchers theorize that the lake likely teamed with life before its top permanently froze over long ago, and that these microbes are the living descendants of those ancient life forms. But this isn’t the only mystery surrounding this lake—due to its location, it should have dried up long ago. But water still persists, suggesting its being fed by some currently unknown water source.

Antarctica has long served as an analog for the conditions that are to be expected on other planets. The McMurdo Dry Valleys, for example—which haven’t seen rain in nearly two million years—are a nice environmental comparison for Mars, which is also extremely cold and extremely dry (though Mars doesn’t a breathable atmosphere). Finding life beneath a perennially frozen lake provides another interesting data point for space missions like the recently launched Europa Clipper, which aims to learn if the water beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s fourth largest moon contains the conditions to support life.

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