Blood Falls In Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys on the Taylor Glacier

 

 

Blood Falls is an outflow of an iron(III) oxide–tainted plume of saltwater, flowing from the tongue of Taylor Glacier onto the ice-covered surface of West Lake Bonney in the Taylor Valley of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Victoria Land, East Antarctica.

 

Iron-rich hypersaline water sporadically emerges from small fissures in the ice cascades. The saltwater source is a subglacial pool of unknown size overlain by about 400 metres (1,300 ft) of ice several kilometers from its tiny outlet at Blood Falls.

 

The reddish deposit was found in 1911 by the Australian geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor, who first explored the valley that bears his name. The Antarctica pioneers first attributed the red color to red algae, but later it was proven to be due to iron oxides.

 

 

 

 

 

McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica by Helicopter [HD]

YouTube·WhaleOfATime·3 Apr 2016

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSTnnu5cSIA&t=198s

 

A fly over of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, an ice free oasis nestled in the Transantarctic Mountain Range in Antarctica.

 

This video also includes flying north across the Wilson Piedmont Glacier to the Couloir Cliffs at Granite Harbour, and the journey from Marble Point Fuel Depot across the McMurdo Sound back to Scott Base on Ross Island.

 

The McMurdo Dry Valleys (sometimes called the Antarctic Dry valleys) are located in the Transantarctic Mountains, Victoria Land, located west of McMurdo Sound. The 3 main valleys (there are other smaller ones) are the Taylor Valley, the Wright Valley, and the Victoria Valley.

 

This stunning antarctic footage was captured during an Antarctica New Zealand helicopter operation to service it's radio repeater stations for the summer (Antarctica New Zealand website: http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/)

 

 

Blood Falls: the mystery of this creepy wonder unravelled

Story by Zeleb.es

 

Blood Falls©Provided by The Daily Digest

In Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys on the Taylor Glacier, there is an eery sight: a waterfall that looks like blood. Until recently, this waterfall was a mystery, but scientists finally discovered what was happening more than a century after its discovery.

 

Discovered in 1911 by Thomas Griffith Taylor©Provided by The Daily Digest

According to an article on the subject in the Johns Hopkins University magazine, Blood Falls was discovered in 1911 by Australian geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor during the infamous Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica.

Scientist couldn't figure out what gave the water its red tint©Provided by The Daily Digest

Despite its gruesome name, of course, scientists have always known that the ruddy-colored water that rushed out from the Taylor glacier and into Lake Bonney was not, in fact, blood. But they simply could not figure out what was causing this phenomenon.

Photo by Michael Studinger, courtesy of NASA .

 

Taylor thought the color was due to red algae©Provided by The Daily Digest

According to National Geographic, Thomas Griffith Taylor initially hypothesized that the color of the water was the result of red algae growing in the water, but scientists ended up discarding that theory, and the mystery continued.

 

A 2017 study brought light to the century long mystery©Provided by The Daily Digest

In 2017, a study by a group of American scientists published in the Journal of Glaciology uncovered a large part of the mystery of Blood Falls by using a radar to scan the layers of ice the river runs out from.

 

Taylor Glacier trapped a lake underneath it 2 million years ago©Provided by The Daily Digest

The scientists discovered that below Taylor Glacier was a complex network of subglacial rivers and even a subglacial lake. Essentially, when the Taylor Glacier formed two million years ago, it trapped a saltwater lake underneath it.

 

Iron in the brine give the water its color©Provided by The Daily Digest

Indeed, scientists were surprised to see that these hidden waterways were filled with a "brine high in iron, giving the falls a reddish tint," as explained by Science Alert.

 

Elevated salt content found in the brine©Provided by The Daily Digest

The composition of the brine is what prevents it from freezing, allowing the water to flow freely. The authors of the study wrote, "The brine remains liquid within the subglacial and englacial environments through latent heat of freezing coupled with elevated salt content."   * brine :  salt water

 

"Water releases heat as it freezes"©Provided by The Daily Digest

In a press release, one of the authors of the 2017 study, Erin Pettit, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, explained further: "While it sounds counterintuitive, water releases heat as it freezes, and that heat warms the surrounding colder ice."

 

Heat and salty water allow the brine to flow©Provided by The Daily Digest

Petitt continued, "The heat and the lower freezing temperature of salty water make liquid movement possible. Taylor Glacier is now the coldest known glacier to have persistently flowing water."

Photo By U.S. Department of State from United States - Blood Falls in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, Public Domain

 

There are multiple studies on the water below the glacier©Provided by The Daily Digest

Since the discovery of the subglacial lake and waterways, scientists have been busy studying the water and solids from the water that runs through Blood Falls. Researchers are keen to discover the microbes and how an ecosystem functions below a glacier.

Photo by Zina Deretsky / US National Science foundation (NSF)

 

Scientists want to know how organisms can live in such harsh conditions©Provided by The Daily Digest

Scientists are keen to understand how organisms can live in such difficult conditions. Not just anything can survive trapped for millions of years underneath a glacier after all.

 

How do ecosystems function below glaciers?©Provided by The Daily Digest

Jill Mikucki, a lead author of a paper published in Science on what she and her team found in the water in Blood Falls, told the U.S. Science Foundation why studying the water from the falls is of such interest: "Among the big questions here are 'how does an ecosystem function below glaciers?'"

Photo By Gero Francke/FH Aachen, Wikimedia Commons

 

Life that exists after millions of years of cold and dark©Provided by The Daily Digest

Mikucki continued, "'How are they able to persist below hundreds of meters of ice and live in permanently cold and dark conditions for extended periods of time, in the case of Blood Falls, over millions of years?"

Photo By Mike Martoccia, Wikimedia Commons

 

Information hidden in the water of Blood Falls could aid space exploration©Provided by The Daily Digest

According to John Hopkins University magazine, scientists are obsessed with studying the water from Blood Falls because they believe that be useful for space exploration.

Photo by Jill Mikucki/University of Tennessee Knoxville

 

Understanding this strange environment could help with the search for life on other planets©Provided by The Daily Digest

Scientists at John Hopkins University believe that "understanding this highly unusual environment and its lifeforms could also inform the search for—and understanding of—life on other planets with similarly inhospitable environments."