Posted on 03/06/2010 10:45:51 AM PST by TaraP
There is a five-story, blood-red waterfall pouring slowly from the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valley. Its back story, at Atlas Obscura, is simply remarkable:
Roughly 2 million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist without heat, light, or oxygen, and are essentially the definition of "primordial ooze." The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.
It is one of the photos that made the BEST OF, for 2009 for The Telegraph.
Back in the day, the river in Rome, Georgia ran whatever color they were dying carpet in the mill that day. Smelled, too, vinegary.
There have been red rains before... something to do with atmospheric algae / fungi spores.
I would love to see more info about this. So many questions, e.g., will these anaerobic organisms perish. What will be the effect of all that iron on the biota where the waterfall is flowing?
Bloody Vikings...
If so, don't eat it, or anything that's been around it. You could end up with PSP, or worse.
Let the HP Lovecraft references commence!!
Tekili-li!! Tekil-li!!
Freegards
FEB 28th, 2010
Thousands Of Dead Fish Raise Stink At Rio Lagoon
AP) RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of a popular beachside lagoon in Rio over the weekend, offending joggers’ olfactory senses and leading the city to fight the stench with disinfectant.
The official state news service Agencia Brasil said about 100 city employees working full-time cleared nearly 80 tons of fish as of Sunday. There was no immediate estimate of how many died, but several species were involved.
Rio’s environmental secretary speculated that increased levels of a harmful algae may be the immediate cause of the sudden die-off Friday. She told Globo’s G1 Web site that authorities were still investigating, but the problem was not affecting the fish anymore.
The smell of rotting fish dampened runners’ and cyclists’ usual enthusiasm for leisurely jaunts along the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon’s paths.
The 2-square-mile (4.5-square-kilometer) body of water is just north of Rio’s Ipanema Beach. A canal connects it to the Atlantic.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/28/ap/latinamerica/main6252913.shtml
Looks like it’s that time of month again for Mother Earth.
Looks like we finally found Hoffa.
Josephus reports that the Sea (of Galilee) did, indeed, turn red from the blood of the corpses floating in in during the Great Tribulation, the Jewish War of AD 63-70.
Vinegar is used to set certain types of dye...some dye use copper as a mordant (set)
ping,,,,,,,,,,, alwives in the 70’s
Algal blooms are not that rare. Fertiliser run-off from large modern farms cause these blooms. I doubt the people of the Bible practised such levels of agriculture, and much less so, in the largely barren Middle East.
If this red ooze causes seals, sharks and whales to float up dead (everything in the sea), alert me, LOL!
I wondered how long it would be before someone claimed that a waterfall emanating from a rusty lake was a shocking and convincing sign that the Second Coming of Christ is due at any moment.
Not long, it seems.
no one said that....
However *judgements*, earths disturbances and many other current events do eventually lead up to that...
ROFLOL!!!!!
Megatron!
Thats one hell of a post nasal drip.
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