All articles tagged with #brine
A new study explains Blood Falls by showing Taylor Glacier's downward flexing traps ancient, iron-rich brine beneath the ice; slow glacier movement builds pressure until cracks allow pulses of brine to reach the surface at Blood Falls and seep into nearby Lake Bonney, while iron-rich nanospheres—responsible for the red color—were identified in prior work.
Neptune Energy’s Altmark project in northern Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, has emerged as a major European lithium prospect after an independent estimate pegged 43 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent across its licenses. The company is piloting direct lithium extraction from hot brine—leveraging decades of gas-field infrastructure—with a second pilot in 2025 successfully producing battery-grade lithium carbonate, and a third pilot starting later that year to test adsorption, all ahead of a full demonstration phase and commercial production tied to European aims for domestic supply.
During Earth's Snowball Earth period, iron-oxide records indicate subglacial seawater cooled to about -15°C, kept liquid by hypersaline brines up to four times saltier than modern oceans. Researchers used iron isotopes as a thermometer to estimate both temperature and salinity of ancient sea pockets formed during the Sturtian glaciation, suggesting an extraordinary cold but still-liquid briny ocean beneath global ice.
New research published in Antarctic Science explains Blood Falls: the red water is iron oxide formed by ancient subterranean bacteria, while the liquid is a hypersaline brine kept unfrozen at -20°C; eruptions occur when pressure builds in subglacial channels beneath Taylor Glacier, forcing brine out in bursts and briefly slowing the glacier, with warming's future effects still unknown.