Antarctica is as strange is it is isolated. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at the strangest phenomena related to the southernmost continent on Earth.
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00:00 This might be the most shocking feature in all of Antarctica.
00:04 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the strangest phenomena related to the
00:08 southernmost continent on Earth.
00:11 The sound is not alien, it's planetary, trapped seismic waves vibrating across the
00:16 world's largest expanse of floating ice.
00:19 Number 10.
00:20 Hundreds of Underground Lakes Antarctica is surrounded by the Southern
00:23 Ocean, but that's not the only body of water around the continent.
00:28 Scientists have discovered nearly 400 subglacial lakes.
00:31 Below thousands of meters of ice in Antarctica lie hundreds of meltwater lakes, where the
00:37 Antarctic ice sheet meets the continent's bedrock.
00:40 It wasn't until the 1970s that radar technology was first able to locate these bodies of water.
00:46 The biggest of these, Lake Vostok, is volume-wise the sixth largest lake in the entire world.
00:52 Despite being cut off from oxygen and sun, biological life forms such as bacteria have
00:57 been discovered in these lakes.
00:59 We're not even totally sure what most of these living things are.
01:03 The team thinks that many of them could be sponges of some kind.
01:07 They're known as extremophilic organisms, able to survive under incredibly harsh conditions.
01:13 And how did these lakes form?
01:15 There once was a supercontinent called Gondwana that Antarctica was part of.
01:20 Scientists theorized that these lakes formed following their separation.
01:24 Understanding how much water is flowing under the ice sheet and how quickly it can drain
01:28 to the sea helps give us a better picture of not only how quickly the Antarctic ice
01:34 sheet will change due to a warming climate, but also how Antarctic melt will affect both
01:39 global ocean currents and sea level rise.
01:43 Number 9.
01:44 Strange Creatures We have to commend researchers and others
01:47 who spend any amount of time in Antarctica knowing full well of its harsh conditions.
01:53 Despite its hostility, people are still drawn to this desolate continent today.
01:58 But humans aren't the only species that have managed to survive on this continent.
02:01 And we're not just talking about penguins and seals.
02:04 Beneath the ice sheets and in the depths of the Southern Ocean live creatures of your
02:09 nightmares such as sea spiders and scale worms.
02:12 It was clearly a scale worm, a marine relative of earthworms, which is also called a sea
02:18 mouse.
02:19 While these creatures look a bit unsettling, you should be concerned about their survival.
02:23 Rising ocean temperatures and other environmental factors threaten their existence.
02:38 We might not be able to live in frigid temperatures, but many of them have to.
02:43 Number 8.
02:44 Blood Falls We don't know many people who would honeymoon
02:47 at Blood Falls, but this waterfall in McMurdo Dry Valley is one of the most fascinating
02:52 parts of Antarctica.
02:54 And here in the dry valleys, Blood Falls is one of the most intriguing features.
02:58 True to its name, Blood Falls looks like literal blood as its water gushes out of a glacier
03:04 and fills Lake Bonney below.
03:06 The crimson coloration was first thought to be caused by red algae.
03:10 All the red here is iron oxides.
03:13 But as you can see, this water here is pretty clear.
03:16 However, it was later determined to be caused by oxidation of the iron-rich water, similar
03:21 to how rusty pipes will turn a reddish color.
03:30 Does it make us a little squeamish?
03:31 Yes, but it's still an amazing phenomenon.
03:35 Number 7.
03:36 Mount Erebus, the Volcano The frozen landscape of Antarctica is the last
03:40 place you might expect to find a volcano, let alone an active one.
03:54 But Mount Erebus is a massive volcano on Ross Island that is most easily reached by flight.
03:59 With a height of more than 12,000 feet, this volcano is awe-inspiring in terms of size
04:04 and activity, with regular, smaller eruptions known as Strombolian eruptions.
04:10 It actually has pretty regular Strombolian eruptions.
04:14 That's where a volcano just builds up some pressure on the inside and then it goes pop
04:20 and it blows a bunch of lava out the top of it.
04:23 It's also one of the few volcanoes in the world with lava lakes.
04:27 Sometimes you can spot a bubbling lava lake.
04:29 It's one of only eight volcanoes in the world that has one.
04:33 Ross Island contains three other volcanoes, but only Mount Erebus is active.
04:37 Elsewhere on Antarctica is another active volcano, Deception Island, named for its misleading
04:43 appearance of a typical island.
04:45 Number 6.
04:46 Singing Ice Want to hear some really avant-garde music?
04:50 Try to get a ticket to hear the Ross Ice Shelf.
04:52 In the most desolate place on Earth, where a frozen land is shaped by harsh weather,
05:01 there is a strange sort of sound seeping through the ice.
05:05 Canada's biggest ice shelf is about the size of Canada's Yukon Territory, and produces
05:09 a haunting sound when wind blows across it.
05:12 This sound, somewhat similar to that of a didgeridoo, varies based on different environmental
05:17 factors, including snowstorms.
05:21 Sounds a bit like a didgeridoo.
05:24 It's got a very interesting tone.
05:26 But you can't just cup your ear and hear it.
05:29 Scientists found the sound through special seismic sensors.
05:32 Like the continent it's on, this sound is eerie, expansive, and beautiful.
05:41 Anyone want to start a band in Antarctica?
05:44 Number 5.
05:45 Fossils of Dinosaurs and More Believe it or not, Antarctica wasn't always
05:49 an ice-covered desert.
05:51 For nearly 100 million years, it was a warm and subtropical region full of forests.
05:56 In the age of dinosaurs, there were no polar ice caps.
06:00 Antarctica was covered in forests.
06:03 Rivers carried driftwood to the sea.
06:06 Then about 34 million years ago, climate shifts caused it to freeze over.
06:10 Thanks to the efforts of scientists, we can use fossils to see what sort of species used
06:14 to live there, including dinosaurs.
06:17 So we know that there were forests here before, and other sites are consistent with that.
06:21 For example, there are dinosaur remains found in similar deposits in different parts of
06:26 Antarctica.
06:27 Can you imagine an Antarctica teeming with trees and dinosaurs?
06:30 We don't know exactly what caused this continent's major freeze, but with fossil records and
06:35 other evidence, we can get a better sense of Antarctica's past.
06:52 Number 4.
06:53 Ancient Meteorites Most of the meteorites discovered on Earth
06:56 were found in Antarctica.
07:05 It's not necessarily that more landed on the icy continents than anywhere else.
07:09 Rather, the conditions simply make them easier to discover, especially darker ones, which
07:14 sharply contrast with the ice.
07:16 That's now almost gone, exposing everything that was transported in the ice, and that's
07:20 exactly why, down there, we found about 300 meteorites.
07:27 One big mystery, though, is the lack of iron meteorites in Antarctica, especially when
07:31 compared to the rest of the world.
07:34 Researchers hypothesized these meteorites are embedded deep in the ice.
07:37 In 2019, they employed special detection equipment, including high-tech snowmobiles, to test this
07:43 hypothesis.
07:44 What's the big deal about finding some space rocks?
07:47 Discovering and examining these meteorites could reveal some hidden wonders of the solar
07:50 system, like the formation of rocky planets.
08:08 Number 3.
08:09 Alien Conspiracies Antarctica already seems like another planet,
08:14 but could visitors from another world be trying to contact us on it?
08:17 Rumors of extraterrestrial activity in Antarctica have circulated for years.
08:22 If these accounts are true, and there is, in fact, an extraterrestrial presence in Antarctica
08:29 today, could it have been there for hundreds or even thousands of years?
08:34 In 2012, a video of a mysterious round object hovering over the Neumeyer Station 3 drew
08:40 plenty of speculation about what it could be.
08:43 Though plenty of evidence points towards it being a weather balloon, the so-called Neumeyer
08:48 UFO still tapped into our collective fascination with intergalactic visitors.
08:54 And in 2018, Secure Team 10, a YouTube channel focused on the paranormal, posted Google Earth
09:00 footage that supposedly pointed to evidence of a UFO crash in Antarctica.
09:04 And what appears to me, at least, to be some sort of massive, elongated, or cigar-shaped
09:10 object that, at some point, and we don't know when, came to a screeching halt in the
09:16 snow.
09:17 This was debunked as being, instead, the result of an avalanche.
09:20 Still, there are surely more mysteries to come, and perhaps we're not as alone as
09:24 we think.
09:25 Number 2.
09:26 The Massive Hole Even with its minuscule human population,
09:31 Antarctica has a lot going on.
09:33 In 2017, the Maude Reyes Palenya, a hole of open water in an ocean surrounded by ice,
09:39 was spotted for the first time since 1974.
09:42 Formation of this gaping hole that has ranged from the size of New Zealand to the size of
09:46 South Carolina doesn't seem to be related to changes in temperature.
09:51 This was not some tiny aberration, as its area grew to more than 30,000 square miles,
09:57 or nearly five times the size of Hawaii.
10:00 Researchers later determined that strong cyclones and winds had likely knocked the ice off from
10:05 the area.
10:06 Researchers found that increases in salinity and strong storm activity are likely the two
10:11 formative factors for this mysterious palenya.
10:14 While hearing "giant hole" in reference to Antarctica is definitely concerning, a
10:18 palenya has some benefits, such as allowing for photosynthesis to help plants grow underwater.
10:23 However, sea ice loss is still a major environmental concern, with effects that stretch far beyond
10:28 Antarctica.
10:29 This is how much sea ice is usually around in mid-July, and this is how much was around
10:35 this year.
10:36 Is it a one-off, or is it the new normal as the climate warms?
10:56 Number 1.
10:57 The Mysterious Gamburtsev Mountain Range
11:00 There's practically an entire world underneath Antarctica's ice sheets, including a massive
11:06 mountain range.
11:07 Russian scientists discovered the Gamburtsev Mountains in 1958, seemingly by chance.
11:12 It's unclear how these mountains - roughly equivalent in size to the European Alps - formed,
11:18 or how they've survived for billions of years.
11:21 No human has actually laid eyes on these mountains, either, but scientists have been able to examine
11:25 their features through special radar equipment.
11:28 A study in the late 2000s uncovered various bodies of water that created a frozen mantle,
11:33 helping to keep the mountains from eroding.
11:35 Good luck trying to climb these mountains!
11:38 Which of these Antarctica mysteries fascinates you the most?
11:42 Let us know in the comments!
11:43 So where is this briny water coming from?
11:47 Looking around, there's another clue - the red colour that makes this feature look bloody.
11:52 Did you enjoy this video?
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11:59 See you next time!