A team of Russian scientists managed to reach the mysterious Lake Vostok, buried almost four kilometers beneath the ice of Antarctica, after over 30 years of drilling, said Monday a source of scientists, agency Ria Novosti, taken from AFP.

“Today, our researchers have completed drilling and reached the lake at 3768 meters depth” in the south polar ice cap, the source said without giving further details.

Isolated area of several million years, this pure water lake 250 kilometers long and 50 miles wide – 12,500 km square – may contain forms of life hitherto unknown.

Drilling works were resumed in January after having been interrupted in 1998-3580 m deep, 188 meters above water respectively.

This interruption occurred after the international community calls, which require the emergence of safer drilling technology to avoid ecological catastrophe.

“An event of world importance await us in 2012, is reaching waters of Lake Vostok, older than 30 million years“, said Russian Prime Minister last year Natural Resources and Ecology Yuri Trutnev. “Nobody has so far managed to reach such a depth below the Earth“, he said.

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