The Blood Falls of Antarctica

Antarctica keeps emitting Gothic stories.  Today's it's the Blood Falls phenomenon.  This does not refer to a gore fountain, but rather to an unusual flow of water on the southernmost continent,

a rusty red discolouration on the face of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica, occasionally gushes forth a transparent, briny, iron-rich liquid that quickly oxidizes and turns red, staining the ice below.

Besides the appearance, how else could this be spooky?  Perhaps the age:

the liquid, which comes from a pool of seawater that has been trapped inside the glacier for at least 1.5 million years, is alive with around 30 different types of bacteria with some unique chemical moves.

And now scientists have released it.  Classic Polar Gothic.

More dark, darkly lovely notes here:

a new kind of microbial life flourishing in a dark, icy-cold pool underneath an Antarctic glacier. The finding has implications for how life might have survived on Earth during the coldest, grimmest epochs.

(via MetaFilter)

Comments

[Ed Webb]

It came from the grimmest epoch... I love this so much