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Amazing Alien Landscape On Earth - Dry Valley, Antarctica

24 June, 2012

MessageToEagle.com - Antarctica is not entirely covered with ice. There are a few places which are cold and dry.

The Dry Valleys of Antarctica are remarkable in many ways.

A journey through this otherworldly landscape reveal incredible rock sculptures. Strangely, one of them happen to be very similar to the Easter Island statues!

Conditions here are similar to those on Mars, which is the reason why NASA did testing there for the Viking mission.

Dry Valley, Antarctica - Image credit: Peter West, National Science Foundation

The most important dry valleys include the Taylor, Wright, McKelvey, Balham, Victoria, and Barwick Valleys. Farther south along the coast of McMurdo there are some smaller similar valleys.

Lenticular clouds hover over Mount Erebus volcano - US Coast Guard photo

McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. This area is in Victoria Valley, west of Lake Vida. Polygonal ice patterns have formed as ice fills cracks produced in the ground by the freeze-thaw cycle. The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a dry, relatively ice-free region of Antarctica. The valleys are kept mostly ice-free by natural rock barriers that reduce the influx of glacier ice, and by a lack of snowfall. Credit: Georger Steinmetz/Science photo Library

It is not correct to say that these valleys are completely ice-free, because in some areas there is actually not much but at least little ice. Still, there is almost no snowfall in these valleys.

Lake Vanda in Wright Valley, with extremely salty water underneath thick layer of incredibly clear ice.

The lakes in the Dry Valleys are intriguing and so are the ventifacts, geologic formations shaped by the wind, which are scattered across the areas.

A rock sculpture in Dry Valley. Image credit: George Steinmetz

Compare the above image with Easter Island Statue below.

Another rock sculpture in the Dry Valley. Image credit: Kristan Hutchison

Image credit: Kristan Hutchison

The creator of these remarkable formations was the wind.

"Over eons of sand transport the sand abrades and polishes the surface," said Jack Gillies, a geomorphologist from the Desert Research Institute working in the valleys.

It is a record of historical wind patterns. The salt gets into the little pore spaces and eventually the crystals grow.

It's a mechanical weathering and the wind-driven sand comes along and adds its bit to the sculpting process." Ventifacts can also be found in the Sahara, Mojave and other deserts.

@ MessageToEagle.com

See also:
Amazing Alien Landscape On Earth - Dallol Volcano

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