The Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean?! When did this happen?!

When I was in school, there were only 4 oceans:

1. Arctic Ocean
2. Atlantic Ocean
3. Indian Ocean
4. Pacific Ocean

But in 2000, they decided to officially add the Southern Ocean. Yes, officially. They were trying to add the Southern Ocean since 1937! Who are "they," you ask? "They" are the people who name oceans, the International Hydrographic Organization, of which 68 nations are members. (The Democratic Republic of the Congo is suspended from the IHO, probably because they realized it has less than 25 miles of actual coastline. Also, they misspelled "ocean" on their application form.)

The IHO sent out surveys in 2000 to its member nations, asking if they wanted to define the Southern Ocean as a new ocean. Twenty-seven nations responded "hell yes!" Argentina (and only Argentina) responded with "fuck no!" The other 40 countries probably had actual work to do.

So, as a fuck you to Argentina, we now have 5 oceans.

I thought of two good ways to end this post, so go ahead and take your pick:

Ending #1:
I bet this is how people in Medieval times felt when they found out there are more than seven seas.

Ending #2:
Maybe they felt bad about taking Pluto away from us, so they gave us a new ocean.

Glacier of Blood

Blood Falls is located in at the edge of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. The Dry Valleys are one of the few places in Antarctica that have no ice or snow on them. But that's a topic for another post. Blood Falls (or Glacier of Blood as I like to call it) is located at the tongue of the Taylor Glacier.
It is fucking awesome! Originally it was though to be caused by a wound in the glacier red algae. That's a good guess for 1911. Really, the water is hypersaline, iron-rich, seawater from a subglacial pool. It is unknown how large this pool is, but the water was isolated from the Antarctic Ocean for 5 million years. The iron in the water oxidizes in the presence of oxygen, giving it its evil blood color. Though there's almost no oxygen in the trapped seawater, there are still bacteria living in it.

Picture from Discover Magazine Article:

Hi-res image from the United States Antarctic Program (click to embiggen):