On top of being the coldest and driest place on the planet, Antarctica is home to a crimson-hued waterfall called Blood falls the starkly pour down five stories along with an icy white glacier.
Bloody Falls, named for its ruddy colour, is not in fact a gush of blood from the unseen wound. The colour was initially chalked up to red algae, but a study in the Journal of Glaciology has uncovered its true origin using radar to scan the layers of ice from which the river pours.
The falls pour forth from Taylor Glacier, and the liquid bubbles up from fissures in the glacier’s surface. The flow was previously a mystery, as the mean temperature is 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-17 degrees Celsius) and little glacial melting can be seen at the surface.
The mystery behind this is, the subglacial rivers and a subglacial lake - all filled with brine high in Iron, giving the falls in reddish tint.
The lake under the glacier has an unusually salty consistency, and because salt water has a lower freezing point than pure water and releases heat as it freezes, it melts the ice, enabling the rivers to flow.
This means that the glacier can support flowing water and also that this is the coldest glacier on Earth with constantly flowing water.
The amount of iron-rich brine in the river water and found the brine content increased as the measurements drew closer to the falls.
Credits: Sabitha
Interesting...
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