Demographics of Antarctica
Antarctica has few permanent residents, and contains research stations and field camps that are staffed seasonally or year-round, and former whaling settlements. The largest station, McMurdo Station, has a summer population of about 1,000 people and a winter population of about 200. Approximately 29 nations, all signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, send personnel to perform seasonal (summer) or year-round research on the continent and in its surrounding oceans.
Vostok Station
In 1974, when British scientists in Antarctica performed an airborne ice-penetrating radar survey and detected strange radar readings at the site, the presence of a liquid, freshwater lake below the ice did not instantly spring to mind. In 1991, Jeff Ridley, a remote-sensing specialist with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, directed a European satellite called ERS-1 to turn its high-frequency array toward the center of the Antarctic ice cap. It confirmed the 1974 discovery, but it was not until 1993 that the discovery was published in the "Journal of Glaciology". Space-based radar revealed that the sub-glacial body of fresh water was one of the largest lakes in the world – and one of some 140 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Russian and British scientists delineated the lake in 1996 by integrating a variety of data, including airborne ice-penetrating radar imaging observations and spaceborne radar altimetry. Lake Vostok lies some 4,000 meters (13,000 ft) below the surface of the central Antarctic ice sheet and covers an area of 14,000 km² (5,400 sq mi).