'There are over 145 lakes underneath the Antarctic ice sheet, with Lake Vostok being the largest, lying beneath 4km of ice.’

In 2006 a ‘fledgling’ Geographical Society was launched with what proved to be a fascinating lecture entitled ‘Extreme Environments:  Antarctic Subglacial lakes.’  The talk was presented by George Royston-Bishop from Bristol Glaciology Centre, University of Bristol.  The focus of Mr Royston-Bishop’s research over the last three years has been an examination of ice cores from Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica (over 145 have been recorded to date), measuring 260 km long and 80 km wide.  This lake is buried beneath almost 4 km of ice.  It is thought that Lake Vostok may have been isolated from Earth’s atmosphere for over 15 million years.

To a packed lecture room Mr Royston-Bishop identified the reasons behind current scientific interest in subglacial lakes and the possibility of discovering life in such a unique and extreme combination of permanent darkness, very high pressure and low temperature.

To date none of Antarctic’s subglacial lakes have been directly sampled, in order to minimise contamination of lake water.  Mr Royston-Bishop’s ice core samples were taken from ‘accreted ice’, this is lake water that has become frozen onto the bottom of the overlying ice sheet.  This ice was then analysed in order to examine its physical, chemical and biological condition.  The research findings have identified living bacterial life in the accreted ice, indicating that primitive life exists in subglacial lake environments.

Mr Royston-Bishop concluded by highlighting that his research is also of interest to space scientists who believe that a liquid water habitat deep below a frozen surface provides an analogue for possible life on icy planets and moons, such a Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.

Further information on the work of the Bristol Glaciology Centre and their involvement in a new venture exploring Lake Ellsworth, a subglacial lake in West Antarctic, can be found at the following website: www.geos.ed.ac.uk

Perilous Planet – Living with Natural Hazards Lecture

As part of its programme of inviting speakers from local universities and organisations, the Geographical Society welcomed Dr Geraint Owen from the University of Swansea.

Dr Owen gave two excellent presentations to a packed Geography Department. Over 60 GCSE and ‘A’ Level pupils listened with great interest to Dr Owen’s talks on ‘Studying geography at university’ and ‘Perilous Planet.’

Why study Geography? Dr Owen made an excellent ‘sales pitch’ emphasising the geography’s topicality, inherent interest, opportunities to travel and work overseas, plus the transferable skills that geographers gain, that make them highly employable.

In ‘Perilous Planet’ Dr Owen considered how the impacts of natural disasters have increased in recent decades, despite improvements in our understanding of natural processes and technology that can be used to counter their harmful effects. Recent natural disasters were examined, the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Kashmir earthquake. Dr Owen concluded by stating that the scale of disasters can only be reduced through successful disaster planning. It is in this area that many less developed nations are failing resulting in higher casualty figures.

Further information about the University of Wales, Swansea - Department of Geography can be found at the following website www.swan.ac.uk