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Antarctica is the most mysterious and hostile place on Earth. Miles of ice hide secrets that scientists are only beginning to uncover. From bizarre doorways carved into frozen landscapes to chilling discoveries buried for millions of years, this compilation takes you deep into the frozen continent. What lies beneath the ice? Why do some structures look almost man-made? And what have researchers found in the darkest, coldest corners of Antarctica? Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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Our Social Media:
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https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Look at those lush coniferous forests and tundra. What a wonderland.
00:04You may have mistakenly thought it's Canada, but it's not.
00:08It's Antarctica, about 34 million years ago.
00:11So what makes Antarctica this frigid today?
00:15It turns out a mix of dropping carbon dioxide levels and some tectonic shuffle
00:20played a huge role in transforming this ice-free paradise into the frozen continent we know now.
00:26About 50 million years ago, CO2 concentrations were sky-high,
00:32strutting around at around 1,000 to 2,000 parts per million.
00:36But as those levels tumbled down, global temps started to drop,
00:40paving the way for the mighty ice sheets that later took over Antarctica.
00:44While the CO2 dive was happening, tectonic activity was also working its magic.
00:49The big split between South America and Antarctica opened up the Drake Passage,
00:54which created the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
00:57This powerful current acted like a bouncer,
01:01keeping warm air and ocean currents from crashing the Antarctic party,
01:05and helping keep things rather frosty.
01:08If you mix up Australia and Antarctica, you're not that wrong.
01:12These two continents used to be one.
01:15If you mix up Austria and Australia, it's much worse.
01:19By the way, don't fall for the internet myths and memes.
01:21There's no help desk in Austria specifically for people who intended to fly to Australia.
01:27Now, look at this magnificent Australian pink beach.
01:31It's precious and not in a figurative sense.
01:34Those mysterious pinkish sands are actually garnet,
01:37and it's widely used in jewelry.
01:40Geologists studied those sands and came to the conclusion
01:43that the garnet contained there is older than local mountains.
01:47That doesn't make sense, right?
01:49In fact, it does.
01:52You see, Australia didn't used to be this very detached continent as it is now.
01:57Many, many millions of years ago,
01:59Australia and Antarctica were part of the supercontinent Gondwana,
02:03and glacial erosion released the garnet,
02:06which eventually made its way to the beach.
02:08These sands formed when South Australia was flat and chill,
02:12long before the mountains appeared.
02:14Most garnet gets washed away, but this batch has a rich history,
02:19tracing back to glacial rocks in the Transantarctic Mountains.
02:23So, this pink sand comes from an ancient mountain range hidden under Antarctic ice.
02:30Not only does Antarctica ice hide gems like garnet,
02:34if you look harder, you might find entire buildings.
02:38Sounds insane, but this is exactly what a British explorer did.
02:42His name is Chris Brown, and he uncovered an entire building beneath the ice.
02:49He was traveling to the pool of inaccessibility, and it all started with a bummer.
02:54Chris and his son had their plane broken.
02:57Suddenly, they spotted a lone bust peeking out of the snow.
03:01This place was an old meteorological station.
03:05Despite freezing conditions, Chris and his son Micah had a blast exploring.
03:10Chris is on a mission to conquer all seven earthbound poles of inaccessibility,
03:14and has tackled five so far.
03:18I guess you already know that Antarctica is the largest desert on Earth,
03:22much larger than the Sahara or the Gobi.
03:25Still, despite being the driest continent on Earth, it boasts a seriously weird waterfall.
03:31Nestled in the mesmerizing McMurdo Dry Valleys,
03:34it's five stories tall, and looks like it's gushing blood.
03:38It's even called Blood Falls.
03:41It may look outlandish and even frightening, but its nature can be easily explained.
03:46The water that creates this crimson cascade was once a salty lake,
03:50but over time, it became sealed off from the outside world when glaciers formed on top of it.
03:56Now, this ancient water, hanging out 1,300 feet below the surface,
04:01has cranked up its salt levels to three times saltier than the ocean.
04:05This salt water is also loaded with iron and gets zero oxygen or sunlight.
04:10When the iron-rich water trickles through a crack in the glacier and meets the air,
04:15it rusts up, turning dark red.
04:19You may have mistakenly heard that no bug species belongs to Antarctica,
04:23but it's not exactly true, because there's this tiny Antarctic midge living there.
04:28Plus, there are some spiders, too.
04:32Those aren't your average spiders hanging out in the darkest corners of your apartment.
04:37Those are critters lurking in the chilly darkness of the Antarctic ocean floor.
04:42These little marine creepers are actually anthropods and can stretch around 20 inches across.
04:47As if that wasn't bizarre enough, they also breathe through little holes in their legs.
04:53Quick question.
04:55What's the color that you associate most with Antarctica?
04:58I'm sure it's white.
05:00That's my association, too.
05:02However, Antarctica may look like a slice of watermelon.
05:06That colorful snow comes courtesy of a tough little algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis.
05:12When things start to warm up during the Antarctic summer,
05:15these little guys release their vibrant red and green spores,
05:19painting the snow in wild and funky colors.
05:21But it's best to steer clear, because that snow is not just a pretty sight.
05:26It's also toxic, and definitely not edible.
05:31Searching for fossils is always a blast.
05:34But when you're in one of the most remote spots on the planet, it gets even more exciting.
05:39A diverse team of scientists recently hit the motherlode,
05:42pulling in over a ton of fossils from ancient marine life, dinosaurs, and birds.
05:47From the late Cretaceous period, about 71 million years ago.
05:53Their adventure kicked off with a flight to South America,
05:56followed by a five-day trek through the infamous Drake Passage.
06:00Upon reaching Antarctica, they set up camp using helicopters and inflatable boats.
06:06You might be thinking, why dig in Antarctica with all that ice?
06:10Well, it turns out there are places where rocks pop up, depending on the season.
06:15The team went to James Ross Island, located in the Antarctic Peninsula,
06:20and they went there during February and March.
06:23And that's one of the few parts of Antarctica where, in summer, rocks are exposed,
06:27and those rocks can come from the age of dinosaurs.
06:32The expedition was a success, as they discovered over a ton of remarkable finds.
06:38Next up, the fossils will head to Chile before making their way to Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
06:45Among their discoveries, they found relics dating back about 71 million years,
06:51alongside some around 67 million years old, including plenty of snails, clams, and various marine creatures.
07:01Yikes!
07:02Look at this creepy sea worm.
07:04It could live in LA and be a star in a horror movie,
07:07but it chooses to call the chilly waters of the southern ocean near Antarctica its home.
07:12These worms can grow up to 8 inches long and 4 inches wide,
07:17but don't let their spooky exterior trick you.
07:20Research suggests they might actually be superheroes in disguise,
07:25playing a vital role in keeping ecosystems buzzing.
07:30Now, see that head?
07:31It's not really a head.
07:33It's just a retractable throat that helps this toothy creature chow down on its meals.
07:39Antarctica has many creepy critters to offer.
07:42Let me introduce you to the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star.
07:46It's not like Patrick from SpongeBob, though.
07:48It's more like a deep-sea creature straight out of a horror movie.
07:53Picture this.
07:5420 wiggly arms, some stretching up to 8 inches,
07:58all decked out with these bizarre little bumps.
08:01Yikes, indeed!
08:03Back in 2014, scientists buried 34 seismic monitors in the snow on the Ross Ice Shelf, which is huge.
08:11Think of it as an ice lab the size of Texas, just chilling over the southern ocean.
08:16These clever little machines picked up a nearly non-stop buzzing.
08:20Even though our human ears usually can't catch these low-frequency sounds,
08:25scientists have worked their magic and made them audible for us.
08:28They even shared the creepy audio online.
08:33A glaciologist from the University of Chicago says that if you could hear this vibration,
08:38it'd sound like a swarm of cicadas taking over the backyard in late summer.
08:42But these glacier explorers weren't trying to capture spooky tunes.
08:46They're actually on a mission to monitor the Ross Ice Shelf because things are heating up, literally,
08:53and the ice is melting faster than ice cream on a hot day.
08:56Ice shelves are like Earth safety plugs, keeping all that massive ice from surging into the ocean.
09:02So what exactly is making all that noise?
09:05It's likely just strong winds whipping across ice dunes, creating a kind of natural vibration.
09:15So, there's a mysterious doorway in the middle of Antarctica.
09:19Some people think it's Bigfoot's vacation home, or a shuttlecraft from Star Trek.
09:24Or maybe a door to Agartha, a mythical kingdom some people believe is located in the center of the Earth.
09:31Well, the scientists debunked all these poetic theories and explained that what looks like a mysterious doorway
09:37is located in an area of fast sea ice.
09:40It's offshore of the coast, and is full of little islands with shallow water around them.
09:46When ice flows around hard rocks hidden underneath, it can create patterns that look odd but are totally normal.
09:53In this spot, the ice is thin, so the rocks underneath have a big effect on how the ice moves.
09:59The cold winds in Antarctica also shape the ice and snow and make it look like they're lines and shapes.
10:06So, the mysterious doorway is just a rocky ridge poking out because the ice has melted a little.
10:13The top of the doorway is the tip of the rock, and the sides are snowy trails left by strong
10:18winds blowing in the same direction.
10:21It's essentially an iceberg that got stranded and is melting in one place.
10:27One YouTuber found another out-of-place mysterious object more than 150 miles off the shore of Antarctica.
10:34A 400-foot-long ice ship.
10:37The Internet went wild with theories like that the ship must have ended up there right from the Bermuda Triangle.
10:43But there was no scientific proof that it was a ship and not just a large chunk of ice.
10:49And once some other Internet users revisited the place, they noticed the ice melted in the summer and the hypothetical
10:56ship was gone.
10:58Another mysterious Google Maps find in Antarctica was a pyramid.
11:03And before you make up an exciting theory about how the ancient Egyptians built a secret base here,
11:08I have to tell you it turned out to be just a mountain.
11:11It's part of the tallest mountain range in Antarctica that stretches for almost 250 miles.
11:17It's not the first pyramid on this continent, as explorers from the British Antarctic Expedition
11:23found another unusually shaped mountain and nicknamed it the Pyramid.
11:28But this one didn't even have a pyramid shape.
11:32Here's one Antarctic find that definitely won't disappoint you.
11:36A giant ice shelf that reminded scientists of the Grand Canyon.
11:40A special submarine robot named RAN covered over 600 miles under the thick ice
11:47and brought back some amazing footage of icy mountains, valleys, flat plateaus, and swirly patterns made entirely of ice.
11:56One of the strangest things RAN found was giant ball-shaped holes or scoops in the ice.
12:02Sadly, scientists lost track of the robot.
12:06They think that curious Wendell seals may have accidentally bumped into RAN and caused it to get stuck.
12:12To save energy, RAN probably shut itself down, and the scientists couldn't find it again.
12:17But the team is hoping to build a new robot and continue exploring this icy canyon
12:22to see how the patterns under the ice might change over the years.
12:27Another huge Antarctic canyon was found thanks to bad weather.
12:32A team of sound experts had to pause their work at the Casey Research Station in a storm.
12:37Instead of waiting around, they decided to use the unexpected free time to map the seafloor near Adams Glacier.
12:44And that's how they found a canyon that is almost 7,000 feet deep, almost 30,000 feet wide, and
12:52stretches over 28 miles away from the glacier.
12:55During the mapping, they discovered just part of the canyon before they had to go back to the research station.
13:01But when bad weather came in again, the ship went back and mapped more of the canyon.
13:06They were working in waves up to 13 feet high and super powerful winds,
13:11but they managed to get about 15 hours of data to complete their map.
13:15On the way back to Australia, they stopped one last time, and now they've got a full picture of the
13:21canyon.
13:22Studying it is helping scientists learn more about the history of glaciers
13:26and the interaction between the Antarctic ice sheet and the ocean.
13:30Now, there's a frozen lake in Antarctica called Lake Enigma.
13:34For a long time, people thought the lake was completely frozen solid.
13:38But during one expedition, researchers found that under the thick ice,
13:43there was a layer of liquid water about 40 feet deep.
13:46To learn more, they drilled through the ice and sent down a camera to explore what was hiding in the
13:52lake's depths.
13:53The lake's water, which they think comes from the nearby amorphous glacier through a secret underground pathway,
13:59was filled with strange microbial life.
14:02These tiny microbes lived in mats that covered the lake bed.
14:06Some of the mats were thin and spiky, and others looked like crumpled carpets,
14:11or even small tree-like shapes that grew up to 16 inches.
14:15Many of the microbes could make their own food through photosynthesis, just like plants do,
14:20and it gave the lake a high amount of oxygen.
14:23One of the coolest discoveries was a type of microbe, which usually lives in low-oxygen places.
14:28Lake Enigma might be similar to environments on icy moons like Europa or Enceladus.
14:34So, it could mean that these moons also have hidden water under their ice, and possibly microbial life too.
14:41One more mind-boggling discovery from Antarctica is tiny pieces of amber in mudstone,
14:48found here for the very first time.
14:50It took scientists years of studying incredibly well-preserved fossilized roots, pollen, and spores that they found back in 2017.
14:59Amber proves that resin-producing trees once grew in Antarctica,
15:03part of a lush rainforest that existed near the South Pole during the mid-Cretaceous period.
15:09Back then, disclaimer, I wasn't around then,
15:12the trees would have had to survive through months of darkness during the long Antarctic winters.
15:17Scientists believe they adapted by going dormant for a long time.
15:22The amber pieces the scientists found are tiny,
15:25but they are beautiful shades of yellow and orange with bumpy surfaces that show how the resin flowed out of
15:31the trees.
15:32This resin likely leaked out to protect the trees from insects.
15:36It was preserved because water quickly covered it and kept it safe from sunlight and air.
15:42A scientist was browsing through satellite images for brown trails of penguin waste,
15:47and found four new colonies of emperor penguins at the base of the globe.
15:52These new colonies likely have been around for years,
15:55though three of them are rather small, with fewer than a thousand breeding penguins each.
16:00One of the new colonies was found close to a place called the Lazarov Ice Shelf,
16:05where there used to be a larger penguin colony.
16:07They thought this colony went extinct in 2019.
16:10But it seems the penguins have just moved a bit because of changing sea ice conditions.
16:16So studying them can help us learn more about how emperor penguins adapt to changes in the environment.
16:22Now, there used to be a giant river system in Antarctica 40 million years ago.
16:27Researchers found proof of it after studying soft sediments and hard rocks from the frozen seabed.
16:33They looked at tiny bits of radioactive elements, like uranium and lead,
16:38and learned that the deeper dirt came from the time of dinosaurs.
16:42The dirt closer to the surface was younger and had an interesting pattern,
16:46like the kind you see in river deltas today, such as in the Mississippi River or Rio Grande.
16:52Scientists found tiny signs of life in the sand.
16:55The river that once flowed here started in the Transantarctic Mountains
16:59and traveled 930 miles before it reached the sea.
17:04Researchers kept studying newer layers of dirt from about 20 million years ago.
17:08They hope this will help them predict what the Earth's weather patterns might be like in the future.
17:14That's it for today.
17:15So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
17:20Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
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