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Name : Blood Falls
placement : Taylor Glacier , East Antarctica
Coordinates:-77.71654733868606 , 162.26658111086073
Why it ’s incredible : The falls ' crimson body of water could easily be mistaken for blood .
Blood Falls have crimson water that periodically stream out of fissure in Taylor Glacier and into Lake Bonney in East Antarctica . The falls are named for their gory appearance , which is particularly striking against the pristine - white surfaces of the glacier .
Geographer , anthropologist and explorer Thomas Griffith Taylor first documented the falls in 1911 , while he was on the ominous - fatedTerra Nova military expedition . Taylor subsist the expedition and grant his name both to the glacier where he found the spit red pee and to Taylor Valley , into which the glacier flows .
Taylor and his contemporary attributed the crimson color of the piddle to red algae , but we now know this to be incorrect . Instead , researchnow shows that the waterfall isrich in iron , which reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere when the piddle emerge from the glacier , stain it a bloody crimson color .
Unlike meltwater from Taylor Glacier itself , Blood Falls ' water is piquant , point to a separate briny source within the glacier . In 2017 , researchersdiscovered the waterfall ’s veil heartroughly 1,300 groundwork ( 400 meters ) beneath the ice and 300 feet ( 90 time ) from the blood - red waterfall . The size of it of the reservoir is unsung , but researchers suppose it imprint whenancient seawater flooded the McMurdo Dry Valleys — a row of for the most part C. P. Snow - free valley that includes Taylor Valley — before Taylor Glacier froze substantial . The timing of this flooding issue is unclear , with estimates run between 5.5 million and 20,000 age ago .
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The 2017studyalso revealed that the water in the reservoir is melted , despite the glacier being unchanging at temperature well below freeze . This is possible because water releases estrus as it freeze , warming the surrounding surface area , and because salty piddle involve dusty temperatures to immobilize than fresh water does .
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" Taylor Glacier is the coldest have it away glacier to have persistently flowing water , " lead authorErin Pettit , a professor in the College of Earth , Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University , say in astatementat the meter .
The water is discharged at origin Falls episodically rather than unceasingly , Pettit told Live Science in 2017 . Thereason for this is unknown .
A 2019analysisof the reservoir found that microorganism inhabit the brackish water , which potentially offers new insights into thesearch for extraterrestrial life .
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