The Mysterious Blood Falls

Blood Falls is a natural (Cannot called supernatural) phenomenon, which is a liquid outflow at the snout of Taylor Glacier in East Antarctica. Numerous glaciers have icy outflows, but few of them are salty, and even fewer are red. Blood Falls is a typical continental glacier, descending from a plateau on the Antarctic Ice Sheet about 54 kilometers away.

The Australian explorer & geologists first discover frozen blood falls in 1911, which is now as “Blood Falls” and initially they believed red color from algae. But the five story blood red waterfalls pour very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys. With the passage of time its true natural beauty turned out to be more incredible.

It is thought that approximately 2 million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed underneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they’ve remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a place with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are fundamentally 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 sub glacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within. The existence of the Blood Falls ecosystem indicates that life can exist in the most extreme conditions on Earth.

However tempting to make the connection, it does not prove, though, that life could exist on other planets with same environments and related bodies of frozen water particularly Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa as such life would have to arise from a completely different chain of events. Even if it doesn't confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life, Antarctica's Blood Falls is a wonder to behold both visually and scientifically.

The irregular outflow of reddish fluid let researchers explore the lake without drilling or endangering contamination of the trapped lake itself. Researchers collected water samples from Blood Falls over a period of six years. A lot of tests exposed that its waters contained almost no oxygen and hosted a community of at least 17 different types of microorganisms. How could they have survived for so long, with no light or oxygen?

World’s First Suspension Bridge to Connect Two Mountain Peaks

At about 9,800ft-high and 351ft-long the new Swiss Alps' Peak Walk is the world's first suspension bridge to connect two mountain peaks, Peak Walk at Glacier 3,000 and Scex Rouge. The bridge which is 31 inches wide is the 2^nd highest suspension bridge in the world will be open through summer and winter without any charge. The bridge cost is about £1.2 million actually was opened with a ceremony with a Restaurant Botta at the top of the mountain resort between Les Diablerets and Gstaad. The Peak walk bridge is a splendid platform visitors can see the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, Eiger, Moench and Jungfrau mountains.

The construction work was extremely a significant challenge. Although work has completed now, and bridge is designed to survive the extreme conditions that come with the Alps, such as heavy snow and winds reaching 200kmh. It can hold up to 300 people at any one time but for added safety and comfort that number will be restricted to 150. Peak Walk adds to Glacier 3000 attractions that also include a summer toboggan run, a fun park and a snow bus. The bridge is a unique addition to our destination. Well, the bridge is the world's second highest suspension bridge behind the 3,000 feet up Titlis Cliff Walk in Obwalden, Switzerland.

Eternal Flame Falls, Orchard Park, New York

Eternal Flame Falls is truly one of the most exclusive waterfalls in United States and one of the few remaining natural areas that we may find on our planet earth. It can be easily called that the falls may be the only one of its kind on the planet. In the first look, you might be sense an optical illusion of a flickering golden flame. However in fact, this is a real behind the cascade of a small waterfall in the Shale Creek Preserve section of Chestnut Ridge Park in suburban Buffalo, New York. In fact, you will smell it before you see it, and astonishingly, it's real, fueled by what geologists call a macroseep of natural gas from the Earth below.

Well, this is a geological fault in the shale lets approximately one kilogram of methane gas per day to escape to the surface, where at some point, perhaps the early 20th century, a visitor had the idea to set it alight. The water sporadically extinguishes the flame, but there is always another hiker with a lighter to reignite it. There’re lots of fissures in the creek bed through which methane gas escapes, and you will smell it as you approach the falls, but the others can’t be set aflame because they’re exposed to dissipation by the air currents or are under water look for rising bubbles.

The waterfall is called a simple phenomenon “A Natural Gas Leak” Just underneath the falls that is just happening to be burns. This is tucked deep within Chestnut Ridge Park, New York, is a little waterfall called the Eternal Flame Falls. Chestnut Ridge Park is located on 1213 acres of the northern face of a series of hills sandwiched between the Eighteenmile Creek and West Branch Cazenovia Creek valleys in Erie County.

The flame is not really "eternal" in the sense that it goes out occasionally. Often it is re-lit by the next hiker that finds it extinguished. The gorgeous eternal flame falls is mainly dependent on rainfall and melt water, and normally flowing in early spring, or after long bouts of heavy rain. It reaches 30 feet high, cascading over sloping shale in two segments. A little grotto, 5 feet up from the creek bed, to the right houses the natural gas spring that can be ignited to make a flame of four to eight inches in height. When flow is high, the water pours over the grotto, covering the flame and diffusing the light like a lampshade.

The park itself is an excellent family destination especially in summer comprises of miles of hiking trails, cycling paths, numerous playing fields, tennis courts, and a wealth of picnic facilities and shelters. Eternal Flame Falls, despite being situated within the park boundaries, is off on the fringe, away from the crowds, and most directly accessible from a trail that begins on the southern edge of the park. As you approach the falls, the smell of rotten-egg hits your nose. What you smell is the natural gas that leaks from between the shale layers.

The gasses formed during the decomposition of the organics within the rock deposits are under pressure and push out through cracks and loose layers within the rock. Two other, smaller seepages within the grotto can be lit, although they can't hold a flame as big or as long as the primary flame. There’re several other gas seepages, or springs, around the falls, but locating them can be problematic and lighting them often impossible. Some are located underneath the pool below the falls, and can be seen as bubbles rising up from the bedrock below. Contrary to its name, however, the Eternal Flame it is not always on flame but the escaping gas can usually be lighted with a barbeque lighter, so bring one with you in case the flame has gone out when you get there.

The Peculiar Travertine Chimneys of Lake Abbe

Well, The Lake Abbe is actually a salt lake, the largest and final of a chain of 6 connected lakes on the Ethiopia-Djibouti border. The lake Abbe lies on a basin which is called the Afar Depression at a point where the Arabian, Nubian, and Somalian plates are pulling away from each other. The strain set off by the splitting Nubian and Somalian plates has formed a peculiar landscape around Lake Abbe. When the two plates drift apart, the crust above them thins until it cracks.

Moreover Magma pushes to the surface via the thin spots and warm underwater springs. When the boiling water bubble up to the surface, they put the dissolved calcium carbonates generating towering chimneys, the same way water trickling down the roof of limestone caves makes stalactites and stalagmites. Specific of these chimneys can reach about the heights of 50 meters, and puffs of steam vent from the top. Moreover the strange landscape motivated Charlton Heston to shoot his classic 1968 film, "Planet of the Apes", on the shores of Lake Abbe.

The Afar Depression is captivating to geologists since it is the place where new ocean is being shaped. Therefore the depression is forming as the African plate ruptures into the Nubian and Somalian plates. In a few million years, the Indian Ocean will break down through the coastal highlands and flood the Afar Depression, forming a new ocean and making the Horn of Africa a large island. Hence when continental plates move apart in the ocean, it generates new sea floor, but in East Africa, the procedure is happening on dry ground, where it is called continental rifting.

The Lake Abbe is mainly fed by the Awash River, and seasonal streams which pass in the lake from the west and south, crossing the vast salt flats. On the northwest shore rises Mount Dama Ali, a dormant volcano. The history tells us, that the Lake Abbe was once a much larger lake but diversion of water from Awash River for irrigation in the 1950s has dry up the lake surface area by 2/3’s and water level by five meters. The adjacent town lies about two hundreds kilometers away, but there’s a little settlement established by the Afar people near the lake's shore. Aside from the Afar shepherds who bring their herds of sheep or donkeys to feed, the only inhabitants of this lake are pink Flamingos.