Re: [Phys-l] Is something wrong here?????

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

On 2012, Feb 14, , at 10:33, Quist, Oren wrote:

> I expected someone to comment on this, but no one has.  So, perhaps I don't understand.
>
> It was announced a few days ago (in our local newspaper) that the Russians had drilled down and discovered a freshwater lake deep below the ice surface.  The location is approximately 80 miles (or was it km ??) southeast of the South Pole.
>
> Am I missing something here??

Yup!

See near bottom:


> Oren Quist


The Russians, as does most of the world, use km, if miles, then translated.


The water is, evidently, deep enuff for it to be warm, especially as the ice above is insulating.

Now there are two comments.

bc thinks unremarkable, and divides 40k feet by 5,280 (see below) and obtaines only ~ 3 miles.

the depth, tho, is remarkable:



For two decades it was also the world's longest borehole, in terms of measured depth along the well bore, until surpassed in 2008 by 12,289 m (40,318 ft) long Al Shaheen oil well in Qatar, and in 2011 by 12,345 metres (40,502 ft) long Sakhalin-I Odoptu OP-11 Well (offshore the Russian island Sakhalin).[2]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole


Also "old hat".


http://www.damninteresting.com/raiders-of-the-lost-lake/

And a bit more recent and a believable depth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/world/europe/russian-scientists-bore-into-ancient-antarctic-lake.html

And perhaps Oren slipped a decimal point and thought 800 miles from the S. pole was the depth?