Top 10 Weirdest Antarctica Facts

WatchMojo

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?

11:54 Check out these other clips from WatchMojo, and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell

11:57 to be notified about our latest videos.

11:59 See you next time!

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