The Earth Story

Blood Falls - Dry Valleys, Antarctica

The Blood Falls are named after the bright, crimson red briny liquid that flows from the tongue of the Taylor Glacier. The liquid is stained crimson from the oxidising iron in the water. The iron is sourced from the weathering of the bedrock and is enhanced by microbial action.

This water flows to the surface only a few times per decade, possibly due to to changes in the weight of the ice above it. The water is hypersaline and extremely cold, but still harbours life- in fact is may contain up to 17 different types of microbes! Samples collects show that the liquid has almost no dissolved oxygen either which suggests that the microbes have evolved to make use of sulphate and ferric ions to respire. As the Dry Valleys are the closest that we can get to Mars without actually going there, Blood Falls provides an excellent analogue for studying the potential for life on Mars.

-MJA

Image credit: Peter Rejcek

Further reading: http://bit.ly/1GFIZxf

Blood Falls

Flowing from Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys is the blood-red waterfall aptly named, Blood Falls. The falls are tinted red by the iron-oxide rich, hypersaline water that flows from a lake beneath Taylor Glacier; within this water lives microbes that have been isolated for about two million years and have been the subject of study because their isolation could help scientists identify extraterrestrial possible locations for life. These microbes were thought to be the cause of the reddish color by the first explorers and scientists. The falls is not a continuous flow however, only flowing during the summer months.

---Adam

Photo: Atlas Obscura

Further Reading:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/blood-falls

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/05/15/blood_falls_a_bleeding_glacier_is_a_natural_time_capsule_containing_a_unique.html

The blue and orange effect in this is really cool

Blood Falls - Dry Valleys, Antarctica

The Blood Falls are named after the bright, crimson red briny liquid that flows from the tongue of the Taylor Glacier. The liquid is stained crimson from the oxidising iron in the water. The iron is sourced from the weathering of the bedrock and is enhanced by microbial action.

This water flows to the surface only a few times per decade, possibly due to to changes in the weight of the ice above it. The water is hypersaline and extremely cold, but still harbours life- in fact is may contain up to 17 different types of microbes! Samples collects show that the liquid has almost no dissolved oxygen either which suggests that the microbes have evolved to make use of sulphate and ferric ions to respire.

As the Dry Valleys are the closest that we can get to Mars without actually going there, Blood Falls provides an excellent analogue for studying the potential for life on Mars.

-MJA

Image credit: Peter Rejcek

Further reading: http://bit.ly/1GFIZxf

BLOOD FALLS, ANTARCTICA Blood Falls certainly looks like a waterfall of blood, but blood is not the source. The waterfall is an outflow of an iron oxide-tainted plume of saltwater, originating at the tongue of the Taylor Glacier cascading into West Lake Bonney, found in Taylor Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys in Victoria Land, East Antarctica. The deposit was discovered by the Australian geologist Griffith Taylor in 1911, for whom the valley is named. Initially the red colour was attributed to red algae, however the water which feeds Blood Falls is iron-rich hypersaline water, coming from small fissures in the ice cascades. The source of the saltwater is a subglacial pool beneath 400 metres of ice, several kilometres away from Blood Falls. This water is the last remnant of an ancient salt-water lake, around five kilometres across. The lake probably formed as much as 5 million years ago when the sea levels were higher and the ocean reached far inland. Within this ice-sealed salt-water lake is an ancient community of microbes. Researchers believe that, as there was not enough light to make food through photosynthesis, and with little heat, the microbes underneath the ice adapted over the past 1.5 million years to manipulate sulfur and iron compounds to survive. This kind of process had never been seen in nature before. According to researchers at Dartmouth College, water samples from Blood Falls contain at least 17 different types of microbes, and almost no oxygen. This amazing system has implications for astrobiology. Scientists have an opportunity to observe deep surface microbial life in extreme conditions without needing to drill deep boreholes and risk the associated contamination. This in turn helps scientists to understand the range of conditions within which life can survive; leading to further speculation of the environments in which we could find life elsewhere in the Solar System. -TEL http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contenthandler.cfm?id=1765 http://atlasobscura.com/place/blood-falls http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031105064856.htm Photo: Peter Rejcek, National Science Foundation http://photolibrary.usap.gov/Portscripts/PortWeb.dll?query&field1=Filename&op1=matches&value=BLOOD_FALLS.JPG&catalog=Antarctica&template=USAPgovMidThumbs