Blood Falls

Looking to Antarctica from a bird's-eye view, covered with white snow, you can see a bright spot of red. This is Blood Falls flowing from the Taylor Glacier. It is an incredibly beautiful and unique thing. For more than 100 years, it bothered scientists. How did it happen that red water flows of the glaciers? 

Such a miracle of nature was formed more than 2 million years ago. All this time, due to the high level of iron oxide in the water, it was coloring, acquiring a bright red color. 

But where does this unusual water come from? From the underground lake, located in the glacier a kilometer from the waterfall. It is covered with 400 meters of ice. It is a unique phenomenon when water flows up, not down without special devices.

And one more question: why water does not freeze in such a cold but continues to flow? The scientists found an answer, after long studies. Lake water contains a large amount of salt. That is why, even at a temperature of -10 degrees, it remains in a liquid condition. 

There is another feature. It is the presence of living organisms in such an unfavorable habitat. Bacteria live in a waterfall, despite water has a subzero temperature, there is no sunlight for photosynthesis or nutrients for supporting life. It turned out that they get energy through chemical reactions. These reactions occur during the dissolution of various minerals in the water. Scientists call them “extraterrestrial beings” because they have lived for more than a million years on minimal processes.

It is better to admire this unusual beauty during the Antarctic summer. The glacier is melting, its thickness press on the lake, and part of the water rises to the surface. The frequency of this phenomenon has not been known yet, so the Bloody Waterfall is still a mystery.