Mystery behind the Antarctic’s ‘Blood Falls’ solved after more than 100 years
It has baffled scientists since it was discovered more than a century ago, but now experts think they have finally found the cause of the Antarctic’s blood falls.
The river of ‘blood’ was first discovered in 1911 by an Australian geologist who believed it was made up of red algae.
This was disputed in 2003 that found the water running from the Taylor Glacier was coloured red by oxidised iron and perhaps the last remnants of a five million year old salt water lake.
However, a new study by the University of Alaska and Colorado College has cast doubt on those claims and instead argues the water flows from a large lake that has been trapped under ice for one million years.
The scientists were able to track the path of the water under the glacier using echolocation technology, reports The Sun.
‘We moved the antennae around the glacier in grid-like patterns so that we could ‘see’ what was underneath us inside the ice, kind of like a bat uses echolocation to ‘see’ things around it,’ co-author Christina Carr wrote.
The research confirms the glacier has its own water system.
They were shocked to find that the lake hadn’t frozen despite being entombed in ice for so long.
As water releases heat when it freezes the surrounding water continued to flow.
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