Abstract

This article reports the discovery of the subglacial Lake CECs (named in honor of the Centro de Estudios Científicos), located in the central part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), on the ice divide between the Minnesota Glacier and the Institute Ice Stream. This lake, which was discovered by means of an oversnow traverse in January 2014 using radio-echo sounding, is found at a depth of 2653 meters below the surface of the ice. Preliminary analyses show that it is a body of fresh water that has not shown volumetric changes to date, according to observations with existing satellite data, for which reason it is believed to be a stable lake. This article presents the most relevant data on this lake, as well as data obtained in a second traverse carried out in December 2014.