Organic Lake is a lake in the Vestfold Hills

Vestfold Hills

Vestfold Hills is an area of rounded rock coastal hills, in extent, located at the north side of Sorsdal Glacier on Ingrid Christensen Coast in Antarctica. The hills are subdivided by three west-trending peninsulas bounded by narrow fjords...

 in eastern Antarctica. It was formed 6,000 years ago when sea levels were higher; it is isolated, rather shallow (7.5m), meromictic, a few hundred meters in diameter and has extremely salty water. It has the highest recorded concentration of dimethyl sulfide

Dimethyl sulfide

Dimethyl sulfide or methylthiomethane is an organosulfur compound with the formula 2S. Dimethyl sulfide is a water-insoluble flammable liquid that boils at and has a characteristic disagreeable odor. It is a component of the smell produced from cooking of certain vegetables, notably maize,...

 in any natural body of water.

In 2011, a new species of virophage (a virus

Virus

A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...

 that preys on other viruses) was discovered in Organic Lake. It was named Organic Lake Virophage. It is a parasite of a phycodnavirus, a large virus that infects algae and belongs to the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses

Nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses

The nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses or NCLDV refers to a number of families of large eukaryotic DNA viruses:# Asfarviridae# Iridoviridae# Marseilleviridae# Megaviridae# Mimiviridae# Phycodnaviridae# Poxviridae...

.