A Pre-Flood eco-system uncovered?
"In the frigid, southernmost part of our planet, there is a place where the Earth occasionally bleeds. Of course, the salty, red, iron-oxide rich sludge that seeps from Antarctica's Taylor Glacier onto the ice-covered surface of Lake Bonney isn't the same blood that flows in your veins, but it's similar enough to earn the spot a macabre title: Blood Falls.
Considering that blood is the life force of many an organism, it's fitting that life should exist within the outflow oozing from Blood Falls. In 2009, University of Tennessee - Knoxville microbiologist Jill Mikucki uncovered the presence of 17 different microorganisms. The bacteria, which had apparently been hoisted up from the deep, seemed to use a metabolic process that had never been seen before in nature. Trapped in total darkness below Taylor Glacier, in salty brines devoid of oxygen, the organisms utilized sulfate as a catalyst to "breathe" with ferric iron.
The organisms were definitely earthly in origin, however, but from where exactly?
It turns out, as Mikucki and her team announced today in Nature Communications, there's a whole bunch of groundwater below the McMurdo Dry Valleys, as well as Taylor Glacier, where Blood Falls
"If Blood Falls brine is representative of the subsurface fluid observed with AEM, an extensive ecosystem exists below the Taylor Glacier and much of Taylor Valley," the researchers write.
That would be remarkable, especially considering that ground temperatures in the area range between -3 and -20 °C! The high salt content of the water prevents it from freezing." RCS
And it came to pass after seven days,
that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
Genesis 7:10
