Hodgson Lake
Encyclopedia
Hodgson Lake is a subglacial lake
Subglacial lake
A subglacial lake is a lake under a glacier, typically an ice cap or ice sheet. There are many such lakes, with Lake Vostok in Antarctica being by far the largest known at present.-Characteristics:...

 in Antarctica, first discovered in 2000 and officially described in 2009. The lake is situated on southern Alexander Island
Alexander Island
Alexander Island or Alexander I Island or Alexander I Land or Alexander Land is the largest island of Antarctica, with an area of lying in the Bellingshausen Sea west of the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Marguerite Bay and George VI Sound. Alexander Island lies off...

, west of the Antarctic Peninsula
Antarctic Peninsula
The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica. It extends from a line between Cape Adams and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands....

, at approximately 72°S latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...

 and 68°W longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....

. The lake lies next to Citadel Bastion, a pre-eminent mountain on Alexander Island, and it is covered by 4 metres (13 ft) of ice.

The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee
UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee
The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory and the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

 named Lake Hodgson after Dominic Hodgson, a British Antarctic Survey
British Antarctic Survey
The British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica....

 geoscientist and lead author of the discovery reports.

Hodgson Lake is about 2 km (1.2 mi) long by 1.5 km (0.93205910497471 mi) wide and is about 90 m (295 ft) deep. The lake is covered by 4 metres (13 ft) of ice and has been isolated from the outside world for the past 30,000 to 90,000 years.

Hodgson Lake was formed under the ice, when the base of the ice sheet melt because of the pressure from the ice cap above and the heat released by the rocks from below. The lake is an ultra-oligotrophic lake, with very low nutrient content and very low productivity.

There is no detectable life living in Hodgson Lake.

See also

  • Lake Ellsworth
  • Lake Vostok
    Lake Vostok
    Lake Vostok is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. The overlying ice provides a continuous paleoclimatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for 15 to 25 million years. The lake is named after the...

  • Lakes of Antarctica
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK