Scientists Discover Secret Habitats in Antarctica

Photo by Joel Bensing

Though we’ve been swimming steadily down, there is light in the cave—and it’s coming from the wrong direction. It comes not from above, but from below. When I look down to gauge the size of the chamber, I see a slight phosphorescent glow. I point my divelight downward, hoping to see the source of the light, but when the light touches the bottom of the chamber, it bounces off in all directions, reflected again and again around the room.

Surprised, I run my divelight around the sides of the chamber. There is anchor ice along all the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The delicate discs of ice are stuck to the walls at odd angles turning the chamber into a prismatic hall of mirrors.
 ~an excerpt from Sleep of Reason

REAL SCIENCE:
Deep within Antarctica’s ice caves, a group of scientists may have discovered a secret ecosystem of plants and animals being supported by the warmth of an active volcano. Forensic analyses of soil samples from the caves revealed intriguing traces of DNA. While most of the DNA was similar to mosses, algae and invertebrates found elsewhere in Antarctica, not all sequences could be fully identified.

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-antarctic-caves-harbour-secret-life.html

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