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From deadly ice fingers in the Arctic to an ancient world buried under Antarctica, the frozen depths hold eerie secrets. Explore these mysterious phenomena lurking beneath the ice!
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00:00You're down in one of those polar seas where the brinacle, eerily called the Finger of Death, is born.
00:07It's a strange, almost otherworldly place, the deep ocean, where light barely reaches.
00:14Everything down there seems to have adapted to survive in darkness and intense cold.
00:19But even those truly hardy creatures aren't ready for what a brinacle can do.
00:25When that briny, super-cooled water starts dripping down, a ghost story begins.
00:34The formation of these brinacles is a fascinating process, like an underwater science experiment happening in real time.
00:41We know that when seawater freezes, it doesn't freeze like freshwater.
00:46Because of all the salt in it, it has to push out impurities to form the pure ice that floats
00:51at the top.
00:52This means the salty water, or brine, ends up trapped in channels and pockets within the ice.
00:58When it sees the light of day for the first time, a brinacle resembles a pipe of ice reaching down
01:04from the underside of a layer of sea ice.
01:07At first, a brinacle is very fragile, and its walls are thin.
01:11But the continuous flow of colder brine supports the growth of the brinacle.
01:15It also prevents it from melting.
01:18Otherwise, this process would be inevitable, caused by the brinacle's contact with less cold surrounding water.
01:24As the ice accumulates and the walls become thicker, the brinacle becomes more stable.
01:31Over time, the brine trapped inside gets squeezed out through tiny cracks, dripping down in this cold, heavy plume.
01:38Once that cold brine starts flowing downward, it begins freezing the seawater around it into a sheath of ice.
01:46That's why, instead of melting as it hits the water below, it forms this icy casing that protects it, helping
01:52it grow longer and stronger.
01:54The brinacle keeps moving forward inch by inch, and this crazy downward spiral is almost unstoppable.
02:01And when it touches down on the seafloor, uh-oh, that's when the trouble begins for anything living nearby.
02:09Imagine being one of those creatures on the seafloor, maybe a sea star or an unsuspecting urchin just trying to
02:16make it through the day.
02:17And all of a sudden, you see this icy tentacle nearing you.
02:21It isn't just some cold water coming down.
02:23It's basically a net of ice moving down and spreading out.
02:28There's no escape, no way to predict its coming, and no chance for survival.
02:34It's a slow-motion natural disaster in action.
02:38When a brinacle reaches the seafloor, it continues to accumulate ice while the surrounding water freezes over.
02:45The brine keeps traveling across the seafloor in a down-slope direction.
02:49Once it reaches the lowest possible point, it stops and pools.
02:55But don't let the danger distract you from how beautiful brinacles are.
02:59Well, in their own creepy way.
03:01They look like something you'd see in a dream.
03:04Elegant, twisting ice tubes reaching down, perfectly symmetrical, and totally random.
03:10Filming a brinacle is no easy task because they're delicate when they first form.
03:14Just the motion from a nearby current or a sudden change in temperature can snap them off, ending the show
03:20before it really starts.
03:22So, scientists who managed to capture brinacles on film in 2011 actually got incredibly lucky.
03:29It was the first time the world got to see this icy finger descending and freezing everything it touched,
03:35and it changed our understanding of polar ecosystems.
03:40Brinacles can reach quite impressive sizes.
03:43Sometimes they can stretch for several feet.
03:45Their size depends on the conditions of the water and ice above.
03:49The slower the water movement and the colder the temperature, the bigger and stronger a brinacle can grow.
03:55But if the water's too deep or if there's too much movement in the current, the brinacle is likely to
04:01break apart.
04:03It needs just the right balance to survive long enough to touch down and freeze over the ocean floor.
04:09For creatures living on the seafloor, brinacles are like invisible booby traps,
04:14only instead of avoiding a net, they're avoiding an expanding ice cage.
04:19Starfish and sea urchins might not have big brains, but they have a basic survival instinct to crawl away from
04:26danger.
04:26Sadly, with brinacles, they're usually caught completely off guard.
04:31One second they're minding their own business, the next an icy sheet is closing in around them,
04:37trapping them where they are and freezing them almost instantly.
04:42It's hard not to feel sympathy for these creatures, right?
04:45You watch footage of a brinacle in action and you see a starfish just stopping.
04:50One moment it's moving slowly along the sand and then it's frozen in place, totally helpless.
04:57It's like watching a train wreck in slow-mo.
05:00Luckily, brinacles present danger only to smaller marine life forms like sea urchins and starfish.
05:06Bigger animals like seals or whales, or humans who happen to go diving in the ocean at the frigid poles,
05:13brinacles are totally harmless.
05:15At the same time, for scientists, this tough natural phenomenon offers a fascinating insight
05:21into how life adapts, or fails to adapt for that matter, in extreme environments.
05:27And it gets even better.
05:29A brinacle might just be the perfect setup for life to begin.
05:33Researchers are now looking at these super salty ice tubes as not just fatal traps,
05:39but potentially as sources of life.
05:41This theory isn't just science fiction.
05:44It's rooted in actual research.
05:46Here's how it goes.
05:48The brine channels and sea ice are full of tiny, confined spaces.
05:52Those are exactly the kind of places where chemicals can get trapped,
05:56concentrated, and start interacting in interesting ways.
06:00It's like setting up a mini-lab where the building blocks of life can come together and create something new.
06:08Scientists think this process of salt rejection in sea ice could have actually helped the first bits of life appear.
06:15Some researchers even think that this process might be happening right now on icy moons,
06:21like Europa, Ganymede, or Enceladus, where there might have been frozen seas beneath thick ice layers.
06:28Just imagine it.
06:30Brinacles forming in other worlds of our solar system,
06:33laying down the foundations for extraterrestrial life,
06:36and all thanks to the same icy process that creates these fingers of death here on Earth.
06:43One way scientists describe brinacles is by comparing them to chemical gardens.
06:50Have you ever done one of those experiments where you mix metal salts into a solution
06:54and watch them produce plant-like structures?
06:57Well, you can observe a similar chemical process when a brinacle is in action.
07:02In the cold, saline-rich brine of a brinacle,
07:05certain reactions could kick off to create amino acids or other building blocks of life.
07:11It's wild to think that something so dangerous could have also helped shape our world,
07:16or could be creating other forms of life elsewhere.
07:21In both cases, whether on Earth or another planet,
07:24these icy chemical reactions might be the first step toward the formation of simple lifeforms.
07:31It's a kind of alchemy, where ice and salt water mix to create something more than the sum of their
07:37parts.
07:38This is one reason why scientists are so eager to study brinacles.
07:43Each one could hold a tiny clue about how life begins, survives, or fails under extreme conditions.
07:51Something as mesmerizing and weird, but at the same time simple as brinacles,
07:57hints at bigger questions.
07:59How did life start on Earth?
08:01What are the conditions needed for life to survive in extreme environments?
08:05Could icy structures like these exist in other parts of our solar system or beyond?
08:10Creating similar conditions that might one day give rise to alien life?
08:15As much as they look like a silent threat reaching out from the ice,
08:19brinacles are also reminders of how beautifully complex and interconnected our world is.
08:26They may seem like simple fingers of ice,
08:29but they hold secrets that touch on everything from ecology to chemistry,
08:33to the origins of life itself.
08:35So next time you hear about the ocean,
08:38remember that deep below in the darkest, coldest waters,
08:42something incredible and a little bit terrifying is happening right at this moment.
08:50The South Pole is more than penguins and endless snow.
08:54There's a hidden ghost world within it.
08:56Look, it's right here on the globe.
08:59Don't confuse Antarctica with the Arctic, which is at the top of our maps.
09:03Much smaller in size, and let's face it, way less mysterious.
09:08The ice sheet covering Antarctica is about 1 to 3 miles thick,
09:13which is up to 16 Eiffel Towers stacked on each other.
09:17This massive blanket hides the true features and contours of Antarctica's land.
09:22We still don't know much about this mysterious continent,
09:25and it is ice and snow that are to blame.
09:28We still don't even know the true shape and size of this continent.
09:33Mapping Antarctica without some huge shovels is an incredibly hard task.
09:38But satellites learned to penetrate the ice with their cameras,
09:41and now we know there's actually an enormous, dramatic, ancient landscape beneath the snow.
09:48The ghost of the past.
09:51About 90 million years ago, Antarctica was a much warmer place.
09:56It was actually a lush rainforest with tons of plants and probably teeming with life.
10:01It even had rivers flowing through it.
10:04Then the ice came.
10:05This happened about 34 million years ago,
10:08during the transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene,
10:12when our planet cooled significantly.
10:14It was the beginning of one of our several ice ages.
10:18The land remained, but now was hidden under ice and snow that got thicker and thicker.
10:24To a regular eye, Antarctica turned into a white desert.
10:28Vast, flat, and featureless.
10:32Time went on.
10:34This massive ice sheet moved around,
10:36smoothing and shifting the ground beneath it.
10:39Over the millions of years, it changed what the land looked like.
10:43Now, if we looked under the ice,
10:45it wouldn't hold any signs of the original South Pole.
10:48Except for one place.
10:50In areas where the ice is especially thick and doesn't move much,
10:55like in East Antarctica,
10:56it has actually worked the other way around.
10:59It became like a super thick blanket that protects the land.
11:04Normally, things like wind or rain slowly wear away the ground over time,
11:09changing its shape.
11:10But since we have this protective ice blanket,
11:13it prevents these natural processes from reaching the stuff underneath.
11:17So, the ground stayed almost the same for millions of years,
11:21like it's been frozen in time.
11:24This special area near the Aurora and Schmidt subglacial basins
11:28has become the ghost of Antarctica's landscape.
11:31This place was barely touched,
11:33even since it was first covered in snow 34 million years ago.
11:38This is a historical footprint,
11:40a place that can tell us what Antarctica's ground
11:42looked like before it became a freezing nightmare.
11:46As scientists peered under East Antarctica,
11:49they saw an amazing ghost.
11:52The traces of the rivers that were flowing there millions of years ago,
11:56various valleys,
11:57and some weird little islands,
12:00as well as three big chunks of land,
12:02shaped like the letter U.
12:04Hey, what's that all about?
12:07You see, the continents on our planet are moving constantly,
12:11sliding along the red-hot lava mantle like cereal on milk.
12:15Over history, they came together and broke apart several times.
12:21Hundreds of millions of years ago,
12:23several continents were a part of one enormous Gondwana.
12:27Antarctica was one of them.
12:29It used to be one huge landmass.
12:31But when Gondwana broke apart,
12:34the poor continent got stretched by tectonic forces.
12:38Parts of land were pulled away from each other.
12:41Whoosh!
12:41And they got torn apart.
12:43And that's how we got these big chunks or blocks of land,
12:47under thick layers of ice.
12:49In any case,
12:51scientists now want to explore this ghost a bit more.
12:54But to study it deeply,
12:56they need to actually drill down through the ice,
12:58like using a straw to get to the bottom of a thick shake.
13:02This will help them pick up some rocks and dirt from way below
13:05to learn more about the Earth's history and climate.
13:08Antarctica is the fifth largest continent in the world,
13:12approximately bigger than the entirety of Europe or Australia,
13:16competing with the entire South America in size.
13:19Aside from East Antarctica,
13:22we discussed there are several more regions.
13:25Antarctica Peninsula,
13:27South Pole,
13:28West Antarctica,
13:29and the Ross Sea.
13:31The continent is basically a frozen sandbox,
13:34and all its hidden, mysterious landscape
13:36is actually less explored than Mars' terrain.
13:40We only know for sure that without ice,
13:43it wouldn't just be flat and empty,
13:45but an entire world full of big mountains,
13:48huge canyons,
13:50and even fiery volcanoes.
13:53Some of these volcanoes are so huge
13:55that they peak above the layers of snow.
13:58In West Antarctica alone,
14:00there are at least 138 volcanoes,
14:03though only about eight or nine are active today.
14:06One of the craziest ones is Mount Erebus,
14:10the southernmost volcano
14:11and the tallest one on the continent,
14:13about 12,500 feet high.
14:16And deep beneath the ice sheet,
14:18this guy hosts incredible,
14:20beautiful sub-volcanic caves.
14:22The temperatures there are warm enough for T-shirts.
14:26The Antarctic Peninsula,
14:28or Lesser Antarctica,
14:30looks like a bunch of mountainous islands
14:32deeply underground.
14:33It has newer volcanic rocks
14:35that are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire,
14:38which is like a giant circle of volcanoes
14:40and earthquake zones around the Pacific Ocean.
14:44The Greater Antarctica is a huge part,
14:47almost as big as Australia.
14:49It consists of East Antarctica and the South Pole.
14:53Beneath the ice,
14:54it's a place of rocks that have been around
14:56for a very, very long time,
14:59including the special zone we mentioned.
15:02You probably know that Antarctica
15:04is nearly devoid of humans.
15:06No wonder,
15:07with a mean temperature of about minus 46 degrees Fahrenheit.
15:12But even though this place is horrifyingly cold and deserted,
15:16life still clings on,
15:17you guessed it,
15:19in the underworld.
15:20In 2017,
15:22scientists found DNA traces of algae,
15:25moss,
15:25and even possibly unknown small animals
15:28in the deep caves.
15:29That means that even in such crazy conditions,
15:32there are still unique ecosystems thriving
15:35in little isolated warm pockets beneath the snow.
15:39There was another incredible find
15:41beneath Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf,
15:43a lively ecosystem vibing within an underground river.
15:48Scientists have long suspected
15:50that Antarctica's underworld
15:51should have some freshwater lakes and rivers.
15:55One day,
15:55a satellite spotted a groove there.
15:58They decided to explore it
16:00and used a hot water drill
16:02to melt their way through the ice.
16:04As they reached the underworld,
16:06they dropped a camera
16:07into one of those hidden fresh rivers.
16:09And at first,
16:11they thought they'd find just some rocks or something.
16:13But instead,
16:14they stumbled upon hundreds of amphipods,
16:17tiny shrimp-like creatures.
16:20Little ones instantly swarmed around the lens.
16:23Shrimps blocked the camera
16:24and scientists couldn't check out
16:26what they wanted to.
16:27Pretty funny,
16:28but at least that means
16:30that there really is
16:31an important ecosystem
16:32deep within Antarctica.
16:34Now,
16:35they're gonna explore it.
16:37And all this is just the beginning
16:39of the mysterious underworld.
16:41Antarctica's snow
16:42also hides the deepest canyon on Earth
16:44under the Denman Glacier.
16:46Well,
16:47Mariana Trench is still
16:48the deepest point on Earth,
16:50but it's a part of the oceanic crust,
16:53geologically speaking.
16:55Also,
16:56in 1958,
16:57explorers found a huge mountain range
16:59under the ice,
17:00as big and tall
17:02as the famous Alps Mountains.
17:04The range stretched
17:05for about 745 miles
17:07with peaks as high as 1.7 miles.
17:11And all this magnificence
17:13is buried under tons of ice.
17:15Who knows what else
17:16we might find there?
17:18Antarctica holds
17:19about 60%
17:21of our entire planet's fresh water,
17:23which means
17:24it would be pretty bad
17:25if it melted.
17:26For example,
17:28there's this Doomsday Glacier,
17:29officially known
17:30as Thwaites Glacier.
17:32It's a huge ice formation,
17:34about the size of Florida,
17:35and it's melting
17:36right now.
17:38Every year,
17:39the sea levels rise
17:40by 4% because of it.
17:42If this guy
17:43melts away completely,
17:44the sea levels
17:45all around the world
17:46will increase
17:47by 2 feet,
17:48which might not sound
17:49like a lot,
17:50but it would be catastrophic
17:51for coastal areas.
17:53Luckily,
17:54researchers have found
17:55that even if its ice shelf
17:56were to collapse
17:57in the next 50 years,
17:59the glacier itself
18:00wouldn't retreat
18:01as quickly as they feared.
18:03It's still losing ice rapidly,
18:05but it would be
18:06quite a slow process.
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