Strange outflows in Blood Falls, Antarctica

[GeoffP]

Apparently there's a red, iron-rich outflow from a crevasse in Taylor's Glacier.

Blood Falls

This natural time capsule holds an alien ecosystem

This five-story, blood-red waterfall pours very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. When geologists first discovered the frozen waterfall in 1911, they thought the red color came from algae, but its true nature turned out to be much more spectacular.

No doubt.

Roughly two thousand years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a world with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of "primordial ooze." The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.

It must have a very odd microbial ecology.

The existence of the Blood Falls ecosystem shows that life is indeed possible in the most extreme of Earths conditions. Though tempting to make the connection, it does not show, however, whether life could exist on other planets with similar environments and similar bodies of frozen water - notably Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa - as it would have to arise from a completely different chain of events.

Quite so. Some of the other links I spotted seem to be spouting this connection, which is a bit tenuous.

Regardless of extraterrestrial life, this planets Blood Falls are a wonder to behold both visually, and scientifically.

It did fill me with a certain sense of wonder, yes.

http://atlasobscura.com/place/blood-falls

 

[ElectricFetus]

If panspermia theory is correct then life does not need suitable conditions of a planet to come into being, all life would need is organics, water and material to redox, in this case iron.

 

[Asguard]

hang on, if this is sealed from the outside except for the out-flowing falls then shouldnt it end soon? How big is this pool and when will it dry up?

 

[GeoffP]

I dunno. The scientists involved reckon it surges about every 30 days or so.

 

[Orleander]

I dunno. The scientists involved reckon it surges about every 30 days or so.

LMFAO!!!
:roflmao: