Imagine this: endless expanses of pristine white ice and icy blue waters and suddenly, in the midst of it, a neverending gush of crimson red. That is pretty much what sums up Antarctica’s Blood Falls, the crimson watefall gushing down from the continent’s Taylor Glacier into West Lake Bonney. Discovered in 1911 by Australian geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor during an Antarctic expedition, the image of this natural wonder and the Science explaining it will have you in a chokehold.
There’s no Actual Blood in ‘Blood’ Falls
Thankfully! This bloody scene of nature actually has an elaborate scientific explanation that if anything, will leave you feeling utterly mystified about the mysterious workings of nature, and the people that dedicate their lives to understanding it.
So what happens when an ancient subglacial pool sits under about 1,300 feet of ice – untouched for millions of years with close to zero interaction with either oxygen or sunlight? Well for starters, it stays liquid even at sub-zero temperatures, -5.2C to be exact. The water in this pool contains high levels of iron, so when the hidden liquid escapes through ice fissures and interacts with outside air, the iron oxidises into bright red rust. Recent microscopic studies have revealed that the tiny, non-crystalline nanospheres formed by iron almost instantly births the tart crimson colour, as soon as oxygen comes into the mix. Not just this, the final product gushing down is a brine that is three-times saltier than ocean water, which is precisely what keeps it liquid, despite the atmosphere.
Potentially the most damning thing about the Blood Falls is that its water isn’t devoid of life. Microscopic organisms thrive in the dark, nearly oxygen-deficient salty waters. Studies attempting to understand these organisms have often compared the pursuit of this knowledge as crucial in understanding how living organism smay survive in other extreme environments like Mars.
Also Read: Japan’s Okunoshima is Home to Quiet Shores – and Hundreds of Free-Roaming Wild Rabbits
Can You Visit the Blood Falls?
The simple answer is a ‘yes’ though the reality of it is slightly more complicated. First off, it is of course, rather expensive. Travelling to Antarctica alone is no mean feat on the fiscal front. If that alone isn’t the concern, rare expedition ships travelling to the Ross Sea region can sometimes stop near the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Additionally, some specialised polar cruise packages offer helicopter flights over Taylor Glacier from nearby stations like the McMurdo Station or Scott Base. Most standard cruises however, only go to the Antarctica Peninsula which is on the opposite side of the continent from Blood Falls.
Whichever way, visitors must follow strict environmental rules to protect the delicate ecosystem and unique microbes living beneath the ice – it’s the bare minimum responsibility one has towards not just Blood Falls, or Antarctica in general, but any natural wonder you’re visiting that moves you enough to want to experience it in reality.