Mystery of the Antarctic’s gruesome ‘Blood Falls’ solved

2017-04-30 11:53 GMT+8

By Fu Jianshu
An Australian geologist stumbled upon this Antarctic waterfall in 1911 and put forward the theory that the water was stained by microscopic red algae. /GLOBE Photo
This explanation was overturned in 2003, when scientists concluded that oxidized iron was giving the water spilling from the falls its rusty tinge. However, one crucial question remained: Where is the water come from? /GLOBE Photo
Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks tracked down Blood Fall’s water source to a five-million-year-old lake beneath the ice. According to their findings published in the Journal of Glaciology this week, the saltwater takes about 1.5 million years to make its way to the surface, at which point its brine oxidizes upon coming into contact with the air. /GLOBE Photo

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