Lake Vostok in Antarctica has spent 15 million years under four kilometres (13,000 feet) of ice and scientists believe it contains life -- but ecologists fear drilling into it could destroy it.

The 14,000 square kilometre (5,600 square mile) body of water, 1,300 kilometres (806 miles) from the South Pole, is one of the worlds largest lakes. Its waters have been sealed from light and air for up to 35 million years under the huge pressure of the continental ice sheet.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) said the lake is thought to be home to unique habitats and micro-organisms.

Now a team of scientists led by Robin Bell of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory say that the hydrodynamics of the lake may make it possible to search for life in the ice layers on the lake's eastern shore.

In an paper published in the journal Nature, they say this would provide another avenue for exploring the lake's potential as a harbour of microscopic life, in addition to actually exploring the waters of the lake itself.

The NSF-backed research reveals that although the lake is perhaps millions of years old, its waters are relatively young.

Over a period of 13,300 years, all of the water was removed by the overlying ice sheet and replaced from other sources -- although mysteriously scientists do not know where the water comes from.

The lake water captured by the moving ice sheet was carried as layers of ice over Lake Vostok's eastern shoreline, and then eastward away from the lake.

Exploring those ice layers, they argue, is equivalent to exploring the lake itself.

"Our study is a critical step in the exploration of Lake Vostok," Bell said.

"These frozen lake water samples will record the passage of the ice sheet and the processes across the lake. The data show that the location of the current research station on the lake may not be optimal for biological studies."

Bell said Lake Vostok was absolutely devoid of interference.

"The youngest water in it is 400,000 years old," she said.

"It doesn't know anything of human beings, fossil fuels, or plastics. It is a window into life forms and climates of primordial eras."

Discovered in 1994, Vostok was underneath a then Soviet Union base in the suspended Australian Antarctic claim.

The earliest push to drill into it came from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration which wants to practice on Lake Vostok so they could prepare for a mission to one of Jupiters moons, Europa.

But environmental groups are continuing to campaign for a suspension on any drilling.

"It does seem strange to us that in order to find life on another planet they want to drill into Lake Vostok and contaminate it," says Barry Weeber, a New Zealand environmentalist.

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