An ambitious British plan to search for minute forms of life in an ancient lake beneath Antarctica’s ice has been suspended because of technical problems, the scientist leading the project said on Thursday.

In a move that clears the way for U.S. and Russian teams to take the lead, Professor Martin Siegert said technical problems and a lack of fuel had forced the closure on Christmas Day of the 7-million-pound ($11 million) project, which was looking for life forms and climate change clues in the lake-bed sediment.

“This is of course, hugely frustrating for us, but we have learned a lot this year,” said Siegert of the University of Bristol, principal investigator for the mission, which was headed by the British

Antarctic Survey (BAS).

“By the end, the equipment was working well, and much of it has now been fully field-tested,” he said on the BAS website.

Experts from Britain’s Lake Ellsworth mission had expected to find minute forms of life in the lake three km (two miles) under Antarctica’s ice, the most remote and extreme environment known on Earth.

They had also hoped that by dating bits of seashell found in the water they would have been able to ascertain when the ice sheet last broke up and to better understand the risks of it happening again.

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Scientists from the United States and Russia are hot on Britain’s heels when it comes to drilling through Antarctic ice to lakes that have been hidden for thousands of years.

The U.S. team is aiming to start drilling in Lake Whillans, one of 360 known sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica, in January or February 2013.