BATHYS subsea monitoring — Operational — All sensors nominalStation 7 — Eden Valley — Active — Last survey: 1919 — Next survey: PendingArchive status — 847 entries — 203 open access — 441 restricted — remainder classifiedThe Institution has been operational since 1706 — Motto: Quod Latet OperaturOrbital monitoring — Operational — NominalMeridian Station — Polar operations — Active monitoring — Elevated readingsFellowship applications — Extraordinary Fellow register — Open by post onlyThe Appleby Measure — Last verified correspondence: Gobekli Tepe 2011BATHYS subsea monitoring — Operational — All sensors nominalStation 7 — Eden Valley — Active — Last survey: 1919 — Next survey: PendingArchive status — 847 entries — 203 open access — 441 restricted — remainder classifiedThe Institution has been operational since 1706 — Motto: Quod Latet OperaturOrbital monitoring — Operational — NominalMeridian Station — Polar operations — Active monitoring — Elevated readingsFellowship applications — Extraordinary Fellow register — Open by post onlyThe Appleby Measure — Last verified correspondence: Gobekli Tepe 2011
AR-1969-002 — Archive Record
Lake Vostok — Sub-Ice Survey and Monitoring Record
1969 — ongoingOpen Access
Lake Vostok is a subglacial lake situated beneath approximately four kilometres of ice in East Antarctica, near the Russian Vostok Station. Its existence was confirmed by Russian airborne radio-echo sounding surveys in 1993 and formally announced in the scientific literature in 1996.
The Institution began monitoring the anomaly in 1969. The monitoring was initiated not by a new discovery but by a reference in a pre-existing archive entry dated to 1931, which described an “irregular thermal gradient indicative of subglacial liquid water” at the coordinates later confirmed as Lake Vostok. The 1931 entry references an earlier entry. The chain of references, traced back through the archive, reaches a document dated 1893 that describes the same location without explanation for why it was being monitored.
The 1969 Elevation
In November 1969, the Institution elevated its monitoring of the Vostok location from passive to active. The reason for this elevation is documented in archive entry VA-1969-003, which is restricted at the Third Degree. The Institution notes only that the decision to elevate was made following a communication received from a source that is not identified in the public index.