Geography

A glacier in Antarctica bleeds blood-red water from a crack in the ice

Blood Falls pours rust-red water out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. The color comes from iron-rich brine, sealed beneath the glacier in a pocket of ancient seawater for over a million years, that oxidizes to red the instant it reaches air. Researchers found the brine hosts microbes that have survived in total darkness, cut off from the atmosphere, ever since it was trapped.

Jill A. Mikucki et al., A Contemporary Microbially Maintained Subglacial Ferrous 'Ocean' — Science, 2009

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