[4] The existence of a subglacial lake was first suggested by Russian geographer Andrey Kapitsa[5] based on seismic soundings made during the Soviet Antarctic Expeditions in 1959 and 1964 to measure the thickness of the ice sheet.

[6] The continued research by Russian and British scientists[7] led to the final confirmation of the existence of the lake in 1993 by J. P. Ridley using ERS-1 laser altimetry.

[17] Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice sheets at the end of the 19th century.

[6] Russian geographer Andrey Kapitsa used seismic soundings in the region of Vostok Station made during the Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1959 and 1964 to measure the thickness of the ice sheet.

[6] In the mid 1990s, Kapitsa was invited to join a symposium on Antarctica by the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge and during this time he realized that the data collected from his previous expeditions demonstrated the presence of water in the ice.

[5] The continued research by Russian and British scientists[7] led to the final confirmation of the existence of the lake in 1993 by J. P. Ridley using ERS-1 laser altimetry.

[19] In 1991, Jeff Ridley, a remote sensing specialist with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, directed the ERS-1 satellite to turn its high-frequency array toward the center of the Antarctic ice cap.

[22] The station after which the lake is named commemorates the Vostok (Восток), the 900-ton sloop-of-war ship sailed by one of the discoverers of Antarctica, Russian explorer Admiral Fabian von Bellingshausen.

About 66 million years ago, Antarctica (then connected to Australia) still had a tropical to subtropical climate, complete with marsupial fauna and an extensive temperate rainforest.

[29] The lake water is cradled on a bed of sediments 70 meters (230 ft) thick, offering the possibility that they contain a unique record of the climate and life in Antarctica before the ice cap formed.

The sheer weight and pressure around 345 bars (5,000 psi) of the continental ice cap on top of Lake Vostok is estimated to contribute to the high gas concentration.

[42] Living Hydrogenophilus thermoluteolus micro-organisms have been found in Lake Vostok's deep ice core drillings; they are an extant surface-dwelling species.

Scientists suggested that the lake could possess a unique habitat for ancient bacteria with an isolated microbial gene pool containing characteristics developed perhaps 500,000 years ago.

[48] In January 2011, the head of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, Valery Lukin, announced that his team had only 50 m (200 ft) of ice left to drill in order to reach the water.

[54][55] Since then, a different team led by Scott O. Rogers has been identifying a variety of bacteria and fungi from accretion ice (not from the subglacial water layer) collected during U.S. drilling projects in the 1990s.

Then Scott Rogers published in July 2013 that his team performed nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) sequencing and the results allowed deduction of the metabolic pathways represented in the accretion ice and, by extension, in the lake.

Sequences from aerobic, anaerobic, psychrophilic, thermophilic, halophilic, alkaliphilic, acidophilic, desiccation-resistant, autotrophic, and heterotrophic organisms were present, including a number from multicellular eukaryotes.

[58] Microbiologist David Pearce of the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, UK, stated that the DNA could simply be contamination from the drilling process, and not representative of Lake Vostok itself.

[62] The 2020 study again found the presence of bacteria that inhabit fish intestines and a molecular sequence closest to a rock cod common along the coast of Antarctica, Notothenia coriiceps, which produces antifreeze proteins.

[75] The original drilling technique employed by the Russians involved the use of Freon and kerosene to lubricate the borehole and prevent it from collapsing and freezing over; 60 short tons (54 t) of these chemicals have been used thus far on the ice above Lake Vostok.

[20] Other countries, particularly the United States and Britain, have failed to persuade the Russians not to pierce to the lake until cleaner technologies such as hot-water drilling are available.

[1] According to the head of Russian Antarctic Expeditions, Valery Lukin, new equipment was developed by researchers at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute that would ensure the lake remains uncontaminated upon intrusion.

[8] Lukin has repeatedly reassured other signatory nations to the Antarctic Treaty System that the drilling will not affect the lake, arguing that on breakthrough, water will rush up the borehole, freeze, and seal the other fluids out.

"[6] Lukin claims that hot-water drilling is much more dangerous for the microbiotic fauna, as it would boil the living species, and disturb the entire structure of water layers of the lake.