Bloody waterfall

Bloody waterfall - blood red from a high content of iron oxide flowing from the Taylor Glacier in the Dry McMurdo Valley in East Antarctica .

Bloody waterfall

Schematic representation of the Bloody Waterfall ecosystem

Iron-rich salt water sporadically emerges from a small crack in an icy waterfall. The source of water is a lake covered with 400 meters of ice, a few kilometers away from the waterfall. This lake was formed when dry valleys were flooded with sea water, and after the retreat of water and the onset of ice 4-1.5 million years ago, it turned out to be covered by a thick layer of ice. The salinity of the water in the lake is four times higher than that in the ocean, so the water does not freeze even at –10 ° C.

The reddish field was discovered in 1911 by Australian geologist Griffith Taylor . The first researchers of Antarctica explained the red color by red algae , but later it was proved that the color comes from iron oxides, which are the result of a unique metabolic cycle. After analyzing the chemical and isotopic composition in the streams of water flowing out of the lake, a group of scientists led by Jill Mikucca of Harvard University was able to prove that this lake is inhabited by microorganisms that receive in the absence of sunlight necessary for photosynthesis, as well as nutrients from the outside. vital energy, restoring sulfates dissolved in water to sulfites , followed by their oxidation by ferric ions entering the water from the bottom soil.

The discovered ecosystem allows astrobiologists to make assumptions about the possibility of saving life under similar conditions on other planets of the solar system. For example, under the ice caps of Mars or in the oceans of the satellite of Jupiter - Europe .