Team ready for Antarctica

AN engineering team will be heading off to Antarctica next week for the first stage of an ambitious mission to collect water and sediment samples from a lake buried beneath three kilometres of solid ice.

The research project, headed by an Edinburgh University professor, is set to yield new knowledge about the evolution, and will provide vital clues about the Earth’s past climate.

The advance party heading out next week will be transporting nearly 70 tonnes of equipment.

The Lake Ellsworth Programme’s principal investigator, Professor Martin Siegert, said: “For almost 15 years we’ve been planning to explore this hidden world.”