Lake Whillans

Lake Whillans was considered one of the most beautiful lakes in Antarctica. Lake Whillans, which bears the name of an Ohio State glaciologist, was also found in 2007. The lake is situated in the west of the continent beneath the Whillans Ice Stream, close to the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. Despite being just 7 feet (2 meters) deep, Lake Whillans lies 2,600 feet (800 meters) below the ice's top and is thought to have a surface area of 60 km2. Fish and jellyfish were found to live in the seas below the ice shelf in 2015. Lake depths have been measured to be about 2 meters thus far (7 feet). Due to the high pressure, it has a temperature of 0.49 °C, which is below 0 °C.

Helen Fricker, a glaciologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, initially identified the lake in 2007. Her team concluded that there was a lake because satellite laser altimeter data from NASA's ICESat had shown the ice there growing and receding.

The last time the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was considered to have melted so severely that the lake region had been exposed to the ocean, experts believed Lake Whillans had been buried by ice for at least 120,000 years and potentially up to 400,000 years when they dug into it. However, the evidence was published to indicate Lake Whillans may have had a connection to the ocean as recently as 5,000–10,000 years ago.