Definition
Subglacial lakes are large pockets of water that lie beneath large ice sheets. Despite mean annual ice surface temperatures of below −50°C, background levels of geothermal heating (∼50 mW m−2) ensure that, where the ice is in excess of 3 km thick, basal temperatures can reach the pressure melting point. Subglacial water flows under the influence of gravity and ice overburden pressure. It can flow “uphill” if the magnitude of the ice surface slope is greater than 1/10th of the bedrock slope. Water collects, however, where basal slopes are larger, to form subglacial lakes.
Speculation about the existence of subsurface water in Antarctica took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The first reference to “lakes” in Antarctica was by a Russian pilot (R.V. Robinson) who identified features on the ice surface that resembled oval shorelines. The first evidence of subglacial lakes was derived from a technique called radio-echo sounding (RES), which utilizes VHF radio waves to measure the...
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Siegert, M.J., Woodward, J., Royston-Bishop, G. (2012). Antarctic Subglacial Lakes. In: Bengtsson, L., Herschy, R.W., Fairbridge, R.W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Lakes and Reservoirs. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4410-6_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4410-6_39
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