Image: Atlas Obscura/YouTube
In Taylor Valley, Antarctica, lies something straight out of an episode of The X-Files: a blood-red waterfall full of extremophile microbes.This latest installment in Atlas Obscura's 100 Wonders series takes us to Blood Falls, where iron-rich blood-red water seeps through a crack in a glacier, creating a five-story high waterfall.Three million years ago, a glacier slid over an area of seawater that had made its way inland. The water being too salty to freeze, it just got trapped under the ice, along with all the microbial life that was living there at the time—microbial life that is still, somehow, alive.Scientists have so far identified 17 different varieties of microbes living in the water from Blood Falls. They've postulated that the microbes have been recycling their food supply by breaking down sulfides, which then reform with iron molecules drawn from the water.Watch the video for more footage of this incredible natural phenomenon.