The most mysterious continent of the Earth attracts researchers, discoverers and even fans of conspiracy theories. The study of Antarctica clearly demonstrates that science is being created before our eyes. Amazing discoveries and finds amaze not only ordinary people, but also prominent scientists: the "bloody" waterfall, the Martian meteorite, fossils and even a huge lake lurked in the ice for many millennia.
Martian meteorite with traces of life
The Martian meteorite we know as Allan Hills 84001 was found in the Alan Hills Mountains in Antarctica on December 27, 1984. This find caused a wide public outcry due to the fact that fossilized microscopic structures that could be bacteria were found on the surface of the meteorite. The question of the extraterrestrial origin of bacteria is still open, but the fact that the size of the structures found is 20–100 nanometers in diameter, which is much smaller than any known form of cell life, speaks in its favor.
The uniqueness of ALH 84001 is also in the fact that, according to research data, it broke away from its home planet 4 billion years ago, when there was still liquid water, the rest of the meteorites found on Earth no longer belong to the era of "wet" Mars.
Lake under four kilometers of ice
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One of the largest geographical discoveries of the twentieth century is the subglacial Lake Vostok, which was discovered in Antarctica. The most amazing thing about this find is that it was hidden under a layer of ice 4 km thick. Scientists believe that the lake was cut off from the outside world by a glacier for several million years.
The dimensions of the East are amazing: the total area of the lake is about 16,000 square meters. km, and the depth can reach 1 200 m. Most likely, it remains unfrozen due to underground geothermal sources. Drilling the well was a difficult and lengthy process, it began in 1989, was suspended in 1999 (due to fears of contaminating the unique ecosystem) and returned to it only in 2006, to be completed in 2013.
Since 2015, the active stage of studying the lake has begun. In a water sample, scientists found microorganisms, one of which is of an unknown species. But these were samples from the surface, the most interesting thing will begin when they can get samples from the bottom, where, according to assumptions, the water is heated by thermal springs and is suitable for life. Perhaps, scientists will soon be able to find unprecedented types of creatures. Who knows how evolution developed in the closed ecosystem of the East.
Burnt forest
The fact that Antarctica was once a green continent, scientists have guessed since the time of the first expeditions to a new earth. However, they recently made a discovery that puzzled modern science: over and over again in different regions of Antaktida they find burnt and fossilized forests, which not only prove the theory of "green Antarctica", but also pose a new challenge for scientists - to determine what happened to the forest.
Fossil research has shown severe levels of fire damage, suggesting that ancient forests died about 250 million years ago in a massive fire that could have been caused by a meteorite or volcanic activity. Research on this issue continues to this day.
91 volcano under the ice
More recently, scientists have discovered a ridge of volcanoes hidden under the ice in Antarctica. It can claim to be the largest ridge in the world, as it has 91 volcanoes. How many of them are active is still a mystery, because they are hidden under a glacier, the thickness of which in some places reaches 2 km. The region was explored using radars and other special equipment.
One of the researchers, Robert Bingham, is confident that other volcanoes may be lurking at the bottom of the sea under the ice shelf, which could turn Antarctica into the region with the highest concentration of them. Scientists are especially concerned about how a potential eruption can affect the melting of ice and how it threatens.
Bloody waterfall
Can you imagine what Griffith Taylor experienced when he first discovered Blood Falls in 1911? The red stream pouring out of the snow-white glacier will terrify anyone. True, the scientist pulled himself together and suggested that algae, miraculously preserved in the glacier, stain the water red.
For a long time, the Blood Falls remained a mystery, which was solved only in the XXI century. Water samples from the glacier and other studies have shown that the water comes from a subglacial lake that was completely isolated for a long time. The microorganisms inhabiting it managed to adapt to the lack of light and oxygen, and in the process of evolution began to receive vital energy by reducing sulfates dissolved in water to sulfites.
This amazing natural phenomenon allows scientists to make assumptions that life in the same form could have survived on other planets.
Dinosaurs of Antarctica
Scientists found the first dinosaur remains in Antarctica in 1986, in 2006 they managed to repeat the find. But we were talking about single copies. But in 2016, the expedition to James Ross Island received an unprecedented "catch": in total, more than a ton of dinosaur remains were found.
This amount of material for detailed analysis is a good opportunity to shed light on the extinction of dinosaurs. Now active work is underway on the received remains. Some of the samples are more than 71 million years old. Detailed data on the species are not yet available, but it is already known that some bones belong to plesiosaurs and mesosaurs, others to smaller birds and even ducks of the late Cretaceous period.