Undersea Lakes? Exotic Lakes? Lakes Inside Lakes?

(Loki Patera, a sulphur lake on Io.)

 

Microbes discovered in extreme conditions on the sea floor could lead hope for the discovery of life on Mars scientists say. Always nice to see the boundaries of where life can exist expand, but what fascinates me is that the organisms were discovered near a lake of liquid carbon dioxide under the oceans’s floor. Lakes and ponds of exotic fluids on the ocean bottom are just something I never think of when I think of the seas. Though this one is covered with a layer of sediment, it gives hope that in deeper water CO2 lakes might be discovered.

In fact pumping CO2 into the deep ocean where it will persist as large undersea lakes has been seriously proposed as a solution for global warming. Personally I think it makes more sense to stop doing the things that are causing global warming rather than try to counteract it with even more experimental geo-engineering. History has not been kind to people who thought that further ecological meddling would fix earlier meddling. Like in the Simpson’s where they introduce snakes to eat the bird eating lizards. Then they introduce a special snake eating gorilla to eat the snakes. It goes downhill from there.

Moving right along, there is another type of exotic lake on the ocean bottom. At least one undersea brine lake has been discovered. Imagine, a lake under the sea, complete with shoreline, beaches, and waves. Makes me wonder if there are any other exotic pools of liquid under the sea. Maybe pools of molasses after the great molasses flood? And as for exotic lakes elsewhere, I already covered the methane and ethane lakes on Titan. And there appears to be a lake of liquid suphur on Jupiter’s Moon Io.

I have a fascination with things within things. In a similar vein Manitoulin Island, Canada, is the largest island lake on the planet, located in Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes. On Manitoulin Island sits Manitou Lake, the largest lake on an island in the world. And Manitou lake has islands of its own, some of whom have a few small ponds. Possibly the only ponds on islands in a lake on an island in a lake anywhere. I think that’s amazing, doesn’t everyone? OK, I need to get out more.

 

(The above NASA image is being used in accordance with NASA guidelines and is claimed as Fair Use under US Copyright Law. It is not being used for profit)