High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Lake Vostok (Russian: восток, "East") is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. The overlying ice provides a continuous paleoclimatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for 15 to 25 million years. The lake is named after the Vostok, the 900-ton corvette of Russian Antarctic pioneer Fabian von Bellingshausen. No water sample has yet been obtained.