At first glance, it looks like there was some sort of horrendous massacre on this glacier.
Fear not, this aptly-named “Blood Falls” is actually an outflow of saltwater tainted with iron oxide. The salt water is mixed with the iron from the bedrock below, and tiny fissures in the glaciers sporadically spout this iron-rich water, leaving streaks of blood red ice around the site.
You can find this unique site in Victoria Land, East Antarctica, one of the most intense places on earth. In fact, scientists often compare the region to Mars. They also add that the blood-red water is flowing from a lake that has been trapped beneath the ice for nearly 2 million years.
One geomicrobiologist, Jill Micucki, concluded that the red waters are almost completely void of oxygen, and are home to at least 17 different microorganisms.
Antarctic glaciers aren’t void of life, after all!
Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at UC Santa Cruz said in a press release, “Our electromagnetic data indicate that margins of Antarctica may shelter a vast microbial habitat, in which limits of life are tested by difficult physical and chemical conditions.”
