ANTARCTICA’S Blood Falls – the reddish outflow from the snout of the Taylor glacier – contain microbes that have survived beneath thick ice for millions of years.
Jill Mikucki of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and her team analysed the water seeping out from a sub-glacial lake beneath the Taylor glacier in the McMurdo dry valleys. The water stains the ice red because it is rich in iron. DNA analysis showed the bacteria are related to today’s marine microbes.
The DNA also revealed that the microbes get their energy from reactions that use the sulphur compounds in the water as chemical…
