26/08/2025
Bloody waterfalls
At the heart of Antarctica, the Taylor glacier in the dry valleys, one of the most grievous and captivating spectacles of nature unfolds. In front of a milky white glacier, a waterfall of dark red liquid, which looks like fresh human blood, flows.
"Bloody waterfalls" are so dramatic that early researchers believed that they were witnessing a space crime committed by nature itself.
This bloody waterfall has remained a complete mystery for more than a century.
When Australian geologist Griffith Taylor discovered it in 1911, he believes that the red color is due to the red algae in the ice. For decades, scientists have been trying to explain why a polar glacier has been blooding blood.
But the truth turns out to be much more spectacular than any theory:
Under the glacier, Taylor is one of the most extreme ecosystems on the planet.
About 400 meters below the ice is an underground lake, which has been detached from the outside world for 1.5 million years.
This ancient water contains a huge concentration of iron, 20 times the average in the ocean. When this iron -rich water finds cracks and rises to the surface, the iron is immediately oxidized into the air and becomes liquid, bloody colored rust.
But even more impressive is that inside this frozen underground lake live microorganisms that have evolved in a completely unique way.
These bacteria survive without sunlight, without oxygen and at temperatures below zero, eating exclusively with iron and sulfur.
They are literally microbial "vampires" on the planet, making metal into vital energy and producing this "bloody waterfall" as a by -product of their strange metabolism.
Bloody waterfalls are a window to life forms that may exist on other ice planets, such as Europe (Jupiter's Moon) or Enceladus (Moon of Saturn).
Proof that life can survive even in the most difficult conditions and that our planet still hides ecosystems, as alien as it is incredible, even in places that seem completely dead.
When you see this red waterfall, gleaming from the white ice, you do not just see a geological phenomenon. You see the blood of an underground world that has evolved into silence and darkness for millions of years.
Sometimes, in the summer, the movement of the Taylor glacier, which puts pressure on the lake below, and partial warming on its surface, allows the water to flow through a network of channels in the body of the glacier and to flow out, offering the public the ability to observe this shocking miracle.
WATCH VIDEO:
https://youtube.com/shorts/hB4ASQNb5-0?feature=shared
